1. If you can overcome the lofty ones by force
Then do not trouble yourself with effort and seeking

2. And woo with tongues of scabbards if you are impotent
To attain it with tongues of poetry and sermons

3. For the line and the writer are not equal in splendor
Nor are books like battle days full of horror

4. Leave pleasure even if the efforts
Make you weep, for glory lies in hardship

5. Do not complain to me if a disaster befalls you
For my heart is created from distress

6. And ask dread how often I made it intimate
And how often I gave it my soul and did not give

7. How easy is death to people if they believed
In the truth of creed or beauty of outcome

8. And to the addict knocking on the door of frivolity, I said
While shunning advice is not seemly in me

9. Men's jesting is frailty in their manhood
While seriousness is sometimes shy of play

10. So accept from people what traits are instilled in them
Of sincerity and lies in the two opposites

11. And do not overburden a coward beyond his ability
For most people are created with cowardice

12. The length of the spear convinces me the bravest of them
Knowing that the approach of death is near

13. To find fault in fate after escape is a disgrace
And to strike prunes deeds with a staff

14. Al-Kafeel threw his anklets upon the times
So the cunning of the cunning was lost

15. And his formidable essence entered the souls of the days
Until the souls of doubt and suspicion were astonished

16. He sowed dew and calamity, warning and generosity
So every heart was captive to awe and greed

17. For neither sword-bearer nor book-holder
Has more than to pretend amongst people out of shame

18. When Bahram rebelled foolishly
And sought to uproot the spring with autumn

19. I cracked his flask with Al-Nasser the Reviver
And the cracking of a flask has no branches

20. I marched against them, and had I marched against
The highest heaven, the hearts of the stars would have burned

21. In a night in which I ignited the blue gleam of swords
A fire blazing at the edges of the long spears

22. They thought courage would save them, so I opposed them
Abu Shujaa', reaper of glory and lineage

23. They drank an endless intoxication
From the coffee of death, not from the coffee of grapes

24. And the auspicious Al-Fal betrayed them, so I assailed them
A blow sweeter than strikes

25. Evil befell them through the living one, so they were eradicated
And the befalling of evil through the living is not strange

26. They were not ignorant of the ugliness of their endeavor and their failure
For which slave disobeys his Master and does not go bankrupt?

27. Rather, their souls enticed them
To sever the path of blessing for no cause

28. So the hypocrisy of blessings stripped their hands
After it had grown on the peg of the peg

29. Have you not seen-when the people rebelled and wronged
And deserved blame, they did not live rightfully for epochs

30. The near side did not accept their faces
So He returned the first of them backwards on their heels

31. And they denied from the chargers' backs what they had known
And were thrown, so the chargers betrayed them and did not stand firm

32. Were it not for the captives, and whoever does not
Believe in Him, the flies of the double-edged sword would not have pardoned them

33. They mounted camels following their stumbling
O honor of saddles! Taste the disgrace of fetters

34. As if they atop them were pillars placed
Indeed, hypocrisy is attributed to wood

35. By God, Al-Muhayyi has resolve-how many pure-faced
You left in the land of the living from young and old

36. He appointed to them the ascension of the full moon accompanied
By planets from the clouds' accumulation in veils

37. In youths from the Banu Rizik whom you would reckon
On either flank a spinning mill upon a pole

38. A people, when war established its market, they bring
From the souls to it the very souls of mountains

39. The swift from training, leaders
Whose enemies' hearts are detached from hearts

40. The slayers of enemies-every surge
Is like a cup of wine frothing with seeds

41. The lances suckle the shining points from their mingling
So they waver, intoxicated with rapture

42. As if their oaths drew their resolves
From their eyelids upon the foreheads and hearts

43. As if the gleam of the flashes in their palms
Were lightning in the fray, swooping from clouds

44. So the souls in the cliffs swoop with them
And the bodies in the morning swoop with them in drizzle

45. The rank of supremacy raised them-a brother of resolves
Who did not gradually take the kingdom by degrees

46. Al-Salih the Guider is titled, but with
The sincerity of his deeds, has no poverty for a title

47. Crowned from the Banu Zurayk, his efforts ascribe him to
The progeny of Arabs of pure efforts

48. Zakiy of lineage, except that his position
In glory is too great to be attributed to lineage

49. How unfit is the crown wrapped around his temples!
And many a usurper is crowned by force

50. He leaves behind from his inner thoughts
Whatever he wills of overflowing grace and bestowal

51. He overlooks his subjects' sins with a pardoning forgiveness
Anxiety cannot form a knot from him

52. His power pleased him about people's lapses
So the calm of forbearance is not clouded with anger

53. His silent coursers expressed his warnings
With an articulate one's neighing, restless

54. Like a torrent and night from both no prey escapes
Death in fleeing with exertion

55. He shoots them more terrifying than Ghassan when he shot
With his determination the bends of time that did not swerve

56. Honoring Junayd's darkness with a arcade of sure honor
Neither wavering nor propped up with tent pegs

57. A house of glory stretched out for him
With no pillars but honor, and no propping with stakes

58. Dazzling white and bright, beneath him
The prey of kings bows upon forelocks and knees

59. The glance assumes him above the glance a towering mountain
To which the eyes of the shaggy scorpions ascend

60. His preceders drag before him some whose brightness flows
In their slender waists over the imagination

61. For each bare and smooth soft-skinned one he owns
A dye which, when it adorns the night's head, does not grey

62. And red of twilight hue, ignited
By the speed of galloping, not by whips aflame

63. His nature and plenty they have witnessed disciplined them
So what clouds the calm of forbearance with anger?

64. Tamed Arab steeds that never
Cease to be clad and adorned in what they have looted

65. You see for each new moon of his ships
The galaxy dragged along the banner

66. Bearing the coveted booty of him
Sufficient without necklaces of pearls and gold

67. This is the gear of one who targets his opponent
In every fray with woe and war

68. When you bare them, your resolved palm
For invasion shakes the horrors of the whip in sweet water

69. They stir the patches of smoke beneath which is flame
The smoke is a talebearer about the flame

70. Their track relates, when they depart
From a halted place of serpents creeping in hiding

71. Horses that see life stripped
When their chests shred the enemies' with serpent-like striking

72. Nothing weighs down alarm but that it subsides through them
The caller to war from approaching and uniting

73. You slew a hostile foe assailing them
So be steadfast on the religion of idols and crucifixion

74. In you is the brave soul which they knew
And above them the lions of the forest that did not disappear

75. They visit them a morning draught, and when it thirsts
It does not drink except the red runnels of blood

76. It never transgresses the religion of guidance
While you are more compassionate to them than a mother and father

77. So be joyous in your beautiful days which you apportioned
Between the two praiseworthys, past and hoped for

78. If the days incline to you in their entirety
Then joy is not confined to Rajab