1. Our paternal cousins stopped the oppression when
It was about to return the whiteness of dawn to morning dust

2. Do not let dreams mock you gently
For the calmness of dreams can be greatly disturbing

3. We have what benefits the angels of highness
And what the palm trees gain of glory and pride

4. And from us is he who revived the withered with his money
So he met the honored scripture

5. Whenever glory was alive with betrayal
We rode against it, the heaviest of evil

6. And marched against it under every wing
Unsheathed swords that split forearms

7. So if they dishonor us it is an unbearable disgrace
Even if its sight was green with glory

8. I wonder at the living tribes and a people
Who are mad that I am deaf and blind

9. Men dispute my words though
My greatest sorrow is when they see me as a poet

10. Without the dawn of honor the night is restless
I have made rhymes out of its persistence somber

11. They prolonged the foolishness of objection and carved
For slander words that are raving and lines

12. The more they gather dirhams the more lost they are
Just as the thirsty increased thirst when drinking from the brackish bowls

13. If they convey what they are ignorant of, I
Am a knight of knowledge conveying and elucidating

14. Knowledge is only the dawn; without guidance for the blind
And the dawn guides whoever can see

15. I swear by the Lord of the dancers, they are like
Gazelles who frighten the friendly with terror

16. Ships that tear through the darkness as though
They cut through the bright morning well-lit

17. They charge through its ripped clouds
Like a yellow lion tearing through an outspread

18. They carried men from distant lands
Humbling so that God may pardon and forgive

19. Their words to me are more disgraceful
Than an exposed tree of entangled roots on barren land

20. Who will grant me a day of battle in which I replace
Rhymes and anklets with an army

21. As if the horses of war near the thrust of spears
Are she-camels neighing and kicking up the sands

22. They drag the train of majesty bloodied
As the flood dragged the swollen torrent

23. With Nasir al-Din I would have rained upon them
Cleansing their traces and destroying them

24. He is the man, whether you ask him for gifts or denial
Neither disgusting nor overly kind if you blame him

25. Nobler, his face illuminating the night and fortune
When he is generous with abundant liquor and dawns

26. He persists in the path of righteousness
When he glimpses the right, he rains

27. Upon smooth ground when the gazelles prance
As if the outstretched fingers write its lines

28. The brother of war leads the great crowds
His decree has scarcely dried before it stirs the lands and people

29. So he dispatches in war and drought his loin cloth
Wealthy, mighty, or a bloodied corpse

30. When bold war whirls through his land I see
Lightning and the blowing wind when it blows

31. And when the oval eggs hatch I find it
A straight, sharp sword wherever you aim it

32. Were it not for the gleam of its iron
I'd think the darkness in its sheath was somber

33. It sways thereby till as though they had drunk
From the overflowing cup the heady wine

34. It growls as if a bird, meadow, and lion
And flames as if a lion wreaking havoc

35. It erased the new desert, scattered in its struggle
Returning it to rubble with its chasing

36. It panics the gazelles with its prowling
And winnows a hill with its chainlinks yellow

37. It kicks up a cloud from its burning sands
When tubes thunder within it, it rains

38. With it I have conquered without war or truce
And if I wished, I would be the deceiving shark

39. No thick rain from the CONSTELLATION pours forth
When called upon, the Najdi clouds swarm

40. Cascading as if its basin spills water
Flooding the valleys till like turbaned mountains

41. It thunders with winds clamoring
As did the banners of Chosroes and Caesar

42. It shone until I thought its gleam to be
The swords of Tameem tearing open the settlements

43. It flowed generously; neither the barren places
Were stagnant under it, nor the mighty years somber

44. With less than the Excellency of the minister, though sometimes
His palm was more deficient and abundant in generosity

45. Of the people, they do not give but voluntarily
Nor do good except with frequency

46. If they wrote, they produced eloquent prose
And if they rode, they stepped lightly and broke-gaited

47. For them is every gentle wisdom
Upright, when the Samhari is adorned

48. They are the splendor of glory; you are its kindling fire
And the best the splendor when it blazed