1. I knew a lad whose plight was laughable
A stranger who collected seasons in strangeness

2. He fell in love with prosody at last
Though he was accustomed to ignorance and rawness

3. I disobeyed him, though the blamers disobeyed me
And the sincere enemy and the unfaithful friend

4. I decided against him and he against me
That he will not change, and I will not change

5. He called the daughters of poetry, and they came
Weeping and wailing for him

6. And every feeble meaning courted him
Skipping toward him in feebleness

7. And every heavy word reached him
Then stayed with him, heavy

8. When he composed poetry, Doomsday rose against him
Exhausted and frail

9. He sails its seas with no course
Shipwrecked with no path back

10. And breaks its measures as
An army scatters, group by group

11. He is ignorant even of the satire of letters
And the meaning of speech, deep ignorance

12. He takes “seen” for “sad”, and “dal” for “dad”
And “qaf” for “kaf”, in substitution

13. He inflects indefinite as definite, and nominative as genitive
And introduces in grammar width and length

14. And meanings that have lingered over him
Like rain pouring to revive the withered

15. Thus plagiarism destroys his poetry
And some of the medicine kills the ailing

16. No ray stays hidden in darkness
The arrogance of the lowly exposes the lowly

17. If a Zanj woman bears a white child
Whiteness grows on him, an outsider

18. And he who boasts of plagiarized poetry
Is dragged in disgrace, a great disgrace

19. Like one who steals a garment and is exposed
Too short or too long on him