1. I'm amazed by people who accept my praises
Yet refuse my admonitions—how strange!

2. My poetry is eloquent—why then reject it?
If it's not pleasing, why am I not rewarded?

3. I swear by Him who could seal my destitution
With what would make me shun the ignoble

4. My fault is not the poetry they hate,
But that it's a barrier from what they love.

5. More amazing are those among them
Who care not for my verse or any poetry,

6. Mares distracted long ago by their barley
From poetry—they take the fodder and are saddled.

7. Riders who never stop galloping
With their steeds, so the riders don’t tire, not the backs.

8. Raiders of forays, obedient with their spears—
Spears never seen to have a square head.

9. In their hands no spears brandished,
But at their shoulders brandished and thrust.

10. No bloodied spear among them in the charge,
Only bloodied in the withdrawal.

11. You'll see no spear of theirs that they stab with,
But the led horse is the spear, and the rider's mount.

12. You see each slave of theirs above his Lord,
And his Niza stick sunk in hides.

13. More amazing are the ignorant who acted wisely
While totally heedless of what would perfect them.

14. Boors, not one of them I knew as cultivated,
Nor open to cultivation when admonished—

15. Except they borrowed manners and made
Them a cause for weeping and lamenting.

16. How many borrowed finery as if
When adorned with it he would slip away unnoticed!

17. They were right to shun me and draw near
My counterpart—to shun the superior is proper.

18. The people saw I had merit which their flaws opposed,
So they inclined toward the flawed and misshapen—that was nearer.

19. Bats whose roost was lit up by daylight
And blamed by a stretch of night gone dim.

20. Beasts unheeding of the melody of a temple,
Yet ecstatic over the braying of a barren she-camel.