1. In the slanderers' glee should the boulder strike me,
Though Shibl's whelp drugged me with languor in the burrows,

2. A lion, when his cubs prowl around him,
The beasts of earth are terrified by the formidable one.

3. I see that every living being always remains
With death overtaking it from the wombs of battles.

4. And no one had death behind him,
Even if he lived for very long days in peace.

5. So I am not, even if my soul rent itself
With ardour after my two sons, Nawar the blameless,

6. Grieving after the two who followed each other,
While death severed the talismans.

7. My two sons remind me, weakening,
When they rose between the twin stars.

8. So the tribes laughed at me before, with their son
And brothers, so spare me, nobility's shame.

9. Before, the two Bald Ones died, and Hajib,
And Omar died, and the man Qais ibn Asim died.

10. And my father died, and the two Munazirs, both of them,
And Amr ibn Kolthum, the shooting star of meteors.

11. And their best died, yet they were not destroyed
One evening, the company of Ka'b and Hatim.

12. And Bistam ibn Qais died, and Aamir,
And Abu Ghassan died, the elder of onsets.

13. So your two sons are but two of mankind, so be patient,
For the dead will not return, however the bereaved weep.