1. Hold on Abu Hasan, hold on O youth of Arabs
Hold on O poet of verse, hold on O lad of literature

2. Do not make me climb rugged hills
Where poetry would ride other than its own terrain

3. If you trust in my forbearance in the hour of anger
You have proposed to me, yet I stand above proposals

4. Can the flowing stream take from the stagnant pool?
Or the pure gold be mixed with the dull ore?

5. How can one enter the train of processions
When the dust of arduous marches rises from him?

6. Or how can one who robs the right of speech from its speaker
Take it, when he has always clothed people in plunder?

7. One who rewards a dog is in need of kindness
And the collector of camel dung needs fuel

8. Poetry is the steed you ride
Branching out from it or not branching out

9. And sometimes it brings the distant parts of the train together
And joins the tall camel saddle to the camel saddle

10. I think his invitation to poetry is permissible
Binding on me just as kinship ties are binding