1. Deliver thou from me to Ziyad a message,
A messenger wherever he be in the land.

2. Why dost thou not look me in the eye when we meet,
But lower thy gaze as one made ashamed?

3. What reason when love dwells between us
To pass by the bonds and work for their destruction?

4. Seest thou not that I vary not my qualities
Like a nightly ghoul changing in wasted lands?

5. Rather I hurl at the foe sharp arrows
Piercing the earth in its length and breadth.

6. I am not a lizard, dull and vile,
Nor a burning fever unrestrained and endless.

7. Nor a sprinkling sprinkler, made drunk and fettered,
A steed bound by the lies of pacts and obligations.

8. Nor am I water in a lowland deemed copious
And found shallow after the loss of its plenty.

9. So question me and feel no shame before me
For thus some men ask about others.