1. How many votaries have devoted their blood to you
Out of their fear and poverty,

2. That you may meet Ibn al-Walid and care naught
If you should meet his threats, O days of time!

3. I have come to you haltingly when the bands
Of human kindreds have been parted by epochs and graves,

4. And how often have sandals chafed at the heels
And feet dragged along to you!

5. Meet Ibn al-Walid even though you be bowed down
To deep gloom by his threats!

6. Be like her who was rained upon throughout years
Whose rainy seasons were dust colored.

7. You have found, O Banū Zayd, stars
That glare from the sky with every rainfall,

8. By them the late travellers journeyed and went their way
And by them every wide-stretching course is directed.

9. I swear by a Kaaba men passionately yearn for
From far horizons, from Yemen and from Egypt,

10. To it all faces are turned in mosques
And to it every tomb is oriented.

11. I will pluck out the gray hair of poetry about it
For I am not good at its subtle meanings.

12. It is as if its vestiges were vestiges
Of a flashing sword that has left an impact.

13. I saw you, O Abān, when you had completed
Forty years, the fullness of the moon.

14. He illuminated the earth while it had over it
One of the seven planets in every month.