1. Their spears protect her, and her protectors care not for us nor our solitude with her.
And youths of 'Uqayl ibn 'Aamir have warded her off from us,

2. Whose softness cannot contain her splendor.
A family of lofty abodes, fortified,

3. Whose sons disdain for their daughters to be sought in marriage.
They spurn defects; their honor lies in safeguarding their modesty,

4. And their custodian has forbidden being infatuated with her mention.
If another were to find fault with her, it would not diminish her attributes.

5. So is there a winker in any corner behind her,
My heart's safety? And here are their settlements.

6. So within the homes of the honorable ones is a passion,
That is tied just as their discord was tied with her.

7. And your like are captives whose ransom will not be paid,
Debased and killed, their blood-money will not be demanded.

8. Rather, you will have from them in fate, if fate is just,
And in the wind, a share, if its breezes blow.

9. And a night whose journey is short, though long for one who tosses and turns
As the litter carries away its guide under its canopies.

10. They see the sleepless one in their rooms, though their glances see him not,
Yearning for their goal, though their sobbing is silent.

11. From them comes a moan beneath which is what their mounts carry,
Though if they complain aloud and prolong their silence.

12. When the wind howls and mocks their ribs,
They pray with what its gusts remind them.

13. They traveled the lands, drinking wine,
Their pillows above the ground their saddled mounts.

14. They slept what they slept of their night, then became anxious
Deceptively, though sleep had surrounded their eyes.

15. At an hour when the jinn of desolation and its terror
Seem to the wanderer its plains empty.

16. They crossed the sands, then the open country, then the sanctuary,
Though that was not their journey or their steps.

17. So we lodged them in a gift they were thankful for
That was neither lasting nor rewarding.

18. Passions of the world - if I wanted them
For their like, the noble one's attention would awaken.

19. But I did not see it, though it is equipment with a people.
Of life, unless it was equipment with me.

20. May Allah water it with a torrent whose flooding
Destroys it, and its shade and gardens are for the people.

21. And progeny - and for me from its fortune is the belly of a barren
Aged she-camel whose womb and fetus have aged.

22. I provoke it with a firm Iramite rock
That splits the fangs though its skin is impenetrable.

23. And how can one reconcile with a mother whose
Values change if her denials become rejection?

24. She shows the deceived one kohl around her eyelids,
And kohl of my brotherly sorrow's remoteness in her eyes.

25. Their heads sank low as their birds took flight,
Circling upside down, insane.

26. So you have of it that you see in its coquetry
The profits of an air that pecks in it foolishly.

27. I rode the days’ many-colored back
Dyed, as the horses vary in their markings.

28. And I overturned them day by day, testing,
So neither its foulness remains, nor its goodness.

29. I will carry it until its bridle is light,
And I will be forbearing until its ignorance is tamed.

30. Perhaps the terminator of fortune will revive it later,
For fortunes have their death and life.

31. So do not despair if it rejects you from joining it,
Or if it delays, that its appointments will be corrected.

32. Have you not seen the kingdom of the honored ones whose fire
Went out mistakenly, then their flames blazed?

33. Time toyed with them distractedly with others,
So they transgressed, and its foot stumbled over their ruins.

34. It wished to transfer what they were frivolously given, but the
Plateaus of evil were not things erected fleetingly.

35. They are clouds filling the horizon, and time beneath them
Is barren, when its questioners ask of it.

36. The torrent rose until it flooded China's sea,
Overflowing, while the Euphrates flows in Baghdad.

37. Nasir al-Din protected the heights after those who passed,
So its summits converged, and its fragments gathered.

38. And the crown of the state, might dispersed,
Seeking for its glimpses to be hoped for.

39. Abu al-Ashbal watched over it until he came close to it,
So it had from the scent of its meadows yearnings.

40. A brother of resolves, his friend is not feared for,
As he did not sleep while its enemies were kept awake.

41. Generous, dignified, his qualities
Are fresh when grim faces frown.

42. In his chest is a might that fills valiant men,
Permeating; his manners, sweet.

43. In his war opinion, there is rage and defeat;
War is but his sword and his spears.

44. Generous - qualities are but his cultivation;
Wealth but his gifts.

45. If the shaking of generosity stills him,
Its drops flow in his palm with gifts.

46. The dew benefited, and its meadows
Were not abandoned by the winds of loftiness, or the whistling of its trees.

47. Of the people, they surpassed, leaders,
As they were its lords and guardians.

48. So from their forbearance are its pillars and its mountains,
From their generosity, its waters and vegetation.

49. They are not like those whom time exalted frivolously
And who were brought by a state whose power disintegrated.

50. Nor like those the wind randomly carried high
Then cast down when its gusts subsided.

51. I recognized them, and the soul ennobles its origins,
Priding itself for its flowing lineage, and its self.

52. Through you its branches were shaken, and its shade thrived,
Its wings recovered, and its blessings came to an end.

53. You gathered for it each merit’s choicest parts
Too mighty for one who desires them individually.

54. So whoever is from a people with meanness in their skins
And in their clothes coarseness that is apparent, you are its elite.

55. If time shows hostility with you in its side,
Prophethood from it will not be erased with any regret expressed belatedly.

56. And your excellent patience shook the foe Sa'da,
For they knew from the shaking how firm it stood.

57. You were but the sun whose rising heat dispelled ignorance
On its cheek, and then its darknesses disappeared.

58. The king turned away when the ugliness of
Its ending and consequence became clear.

59. And he saw it repulsive - its tale will remain
Vile, and nothing of it will return to him.

60. So he returned the sword to the sheath; its blades did not rust
If its edges were made smooth.

61. How can beauty befit the faces of a state
If its crowns lack embellishments?

62. May Allah protect a soul the wealthy did not increase in might,
Nor did poverty degrade its ranks.

63. Revered in its limit and authority,
Not what its possessions contained.

64. If one day it suffered misfortune’s blow
From fate, it was difficult for its perplexity to bear it.

65. While you are one who is granted gifts, your year ashen,
The gift of men whose years were verdant.

66. With generosity, how can one other than you manage it,
Your hand pouring only where its chastity willed?

67. Take me, take me in estrangement that I never relied on
And a separation of years that I began.

68. And slow effort from my position of greatness with you,
When feet succeeded, and hours passed.

69. It was but fortune that deprived me of you
And much worldly wealth whose comforts slipped away.

70. It wants for my soul all I do not,
And deprives it of what its passions require.

71. Yet I am one whose ropes do not fray
And who is not feared to be corrupted.

72. Remaining upon your blessings, guarding them,
Preserving what its sanctities made obligatory.

73. Moving a people - their nearness and their distance -
My soul does not wander, substituted by them.

74. It yearns for your days in your absences,
And your epoch urges it on.

75. With me for you, if I angered you, are my former ways
That restore your glory subsequently.

76. It acts upon its ways with your attributes -
Rising positions heavy with loftiness walking in the heights.

77. Occurrences in the open lands and ascents
Repelled in their blowing by their risings.

78. They resemble the valleys’ cool Zubayd breezes, spread
With your banners’ unfolding.

79. By them the twilight tells its tale
As your radiance lights the day decisively.

80. The ears are enraptured by them, as though
The beautiful melodies are what their narrators recite.

81. It is as if the first times alternated upon them,
The people of bliss, upon whom cups rotated.

82. Informing of your days by joining them,
Showing beauty before the later ones are seen.

83. For how long, Khawalid, have the pilgrims not donned ihram
Or circumambulated around Mecca’s slopes, Arafat?

84. And not cut them off from obligatory rites, their prostrations
Gushing from their devotion their transgressive acts.

85. The holidays visit you adorned
By what the gentlewomen fashioned for you.

86. If I curse ignoble people, then it is but
Prayers for your remembrance and salutations.