1. Poetry taught the noble ones and gained
From its severity the keen and brave white swordsmen.

2. Neither vulgar nor despised to be taken lightly,
Nor the description of a bored singer in her affection.

3. So do not call me a degraded composer,
Vile slanderer; to me poetry and rhyme are disgusting.

4. My poetry is the law of glorious honor, not studied,
Teaching noble knowledge to people, if they are ignorant.

5. It abandons the limited inaccessible fortress,
And returns the fallen, that brave horseman.

6. And expels shame from a heart it settles in,
Expelling it like the driving away of sand grouse in their hind-parts.

7. It covered the suns of my knowledge in its eloquence,
A dark, towering, lofty cloak, and its composition excellent.

8. So the sun is stripped of its illumination, yet still visible,
And the earth is compliant, and the plants ripe.

9. Fate occasionally slumbers, so it rouses him
With fame’s cry among mankind that is unseemly.

10. And it is clear from Tameem in her protection,
It protects me while souls of merit are made common.

11. It prevents the west of my fathers from its ferocity
With good news and generosity, for it is the pouring rain.

12. Crown of kings, youth of blessings, when
The clouds of the sky were detained, and generosity and paths cut off.

13. Free spirited, as if the sun overflowed it,
Flooding all creation, neither great nor stingy.

14. Fear increases its might when it faces it
On the day of battle, and its generosity pours forth hailstones.

15. And it pursues calmness charitably supporting it,
So in alliance with it are the sea and the mountain.

16. In might, victory, and stepping forward an army in tumult,
The number of spears, and in protecting us a man.

17. Small in shame, great in virtues,
And tremendous in affairs, in its opinions a disputant.

18. It meets the enemies with two sword edges in a dazzling flash
That do not weaken when terror dismounts its rider.

19. So in battle there is a piercing stab withoutdeviation,
And in positions an opinion without error.

20. O sun of our nation, you still shine
Without being clouded by darkness or eclipsed.