1. Did she deny me or disown our intimacy?
Her passionate urges make inroads into my heart.

2. They set out evenly while the spears frowned,
Their necks and forelocks challenging each other.

3. They saw its kick and thought it was a small cloud,
Little did they know until its foreheads appeared.

4. Over its haunches were victorious lads
Stroking its shoulders and knees.

5. Valiant warriors whose necks never bend,
Neither cowardice nor years weakened them.

6. Covered with sweat and gloom they pass,
If not for their speed, their features would not show.

7. Whenever you see them in their valley, you see youths
Whose forelocks on the day of battle are seized.

8. Empty of whatever fills their quivers
Or their eyelids filled with possessions.

9. They leap over the necks of every tribe,
Their swords shaking or their spears piercing.

10. They see the sacred month as violable
When their resolves spur them into battle.

11. The most forbearing people, until when hurt
Their ignorance takes flight with them.

12. When the horses are branded with fire, then with them
The honorable traces of lances are their mark.

13. Whenever they hear the shrieks, they listen attentively
Rising to the battle-cry their ears hear.

14. We set out with tough unyielding hearts,
Paying little heed to what we left behind.

15. When they set out with serious intent, neither
Their young men or girls hold back.

16. Their lead horses take precedence, not their women,
As do their arms and whiteness, not their mothers.

17. An enemy tribe spent a night rendered helpless,
It would not have been pleasant had their tomorrow come.

18. And horses we startled awake with our spears
As the stalls are startled by lightning striking them.

19. They did not wake until their neighing spread,
And their tears outpaced them.

20. None survived except those our swords missed,
And those our blades tasted felt destruction.

21. Deadly lionesses whom nothing of their prey escapes
When the dead are led off as blood-money.

22. We are accustomed to spear tips, we
Bear them and ply them.

23. For our hands they specifically sprouted, truly
The spear plants thrive through our thrusting them.

24. Tethered at our doors, and into battle
Their stout shafts shake in our hands.

25. I refused though pride was my nature,
What capture whose people I did not destroy?

26. So do not try to frighten me foolishly,
I have a zeal no insults can shake.

27. Many disgraceful tribes attacked my honor,
And had I wished their transgressions would not have glanced me.

28. I ignore them like deaf adders
When their braying finds me unaware.

29. My worries would be prolonged whenever
I hear the barking of despicable dogs.

30. Due to their vileness, their sins diminish to me
So I do not know which of their gardens to ruin.

31. Short spears that did not pierce my skin,
Though their blades would have pierced another.

32. They provoked the vipers and disturbed
The sleeping scorpions in the night.

33. And they conveyed what I did not comprehend
For the harm of news is in those who convey it.

34. They accused me with what had my eyes accused,
My sanity over my honor would have ruptured.

35. If I overlook the feud between us
While hearts mired in hatred refuse,

36. Let it remain a wound between us closing up
And do not overreach me, or you will get my sharp tongue.

37. For I am forbearing with enemies, a reconciler
If they halve the little feud.

38. The grace I was granted estranged me from you
Though our origins join us like watering streams.

39. The soul is a stranger among family
When its forms and offspring are gone.

40. O Bani Murrah, they left noble souls
That years cause to sleep.

41. Leave them be, better for enemies is their calmness
And worse for those roused by them into wakefulness.

42. Trust that soon their evil will subside,
Even if you say their embers have been extinguished.

43. And do not feel safe for their stillness,
Sometimes their restless nature takes you by surprise.

44. And do not feel safe from the raging of souls, even if
Their dwellings seem deflated and desolate.

45. O Banu Hashim, we are the pupil of their eye
Despite a people's disdain, and you their eyelashes.

46. And you remain a disease that makes it blink
Even if you are part of it and we its corners.

47. Strangest is that you sought heights without
The tools to attain its elevations.

48. You hoped to attain it by beginnings
Leave it, its times will seek the heights.

49. If you fell short of its extent, we surely
Are swift when its racetracks extend to us.

50. I refuse before you that which the world’s vanities
And dependencies did not cling to.

51. He avoided it disorderly, not upright
Were its steps or safe its stumbling.

52. Pleased tomorrow with the trifling of it, sufficed
Though its containers could have been his had he wished.

53. He rid himself of it after tasting its flavor
So its delicacies seemed clamor to him.

54. He shunned Quraysh when its hide was flayed
And the men’s grip on its pebbles weakened.

55. And he boycotted it after its branch inclined
And when its channels insisted on twisting.

56. And how often he returned in one of its misfortunes, enraged
At an overbearing people whose youth were oozing.

57. So who but him will straighten it
When its knee joints stumble?

58. And who will clear the darkness of battle’s din
When its torrents surge in its kick?

59. And who will drive the steeds of glory onward
When virtues evade them?

60. And who takes up the reins of the noble steeds
To pierce the champions of enmity and affliction?

61. For us and upon us, if we remain hesitant,
Is the plucking of heads ripe with fruit.

62. Oh my craving! How many noble souls
Die while regrets lie between them.

63. It pains us if they pass while still
Their sighs were unfulfilled or breaths unfinished.

64. And the abode of humiliation became their resting place,
Whether their life or death is equal to them.

65. Prisoners whom shackles confine, debased,
While their steps are restricted.

66. Their eyes never ceased crying for the slain
With neither tears flowing nor lamentations speaking.

67. May God one day allow them to delight
In a voice silenced too long finding speech.

68. And vengeance had died in anguish while
Their grudges and wounds still bled.

69. How many of their impossible straights were relieved!
Their predicaments clarified and confusions dispelled.

70. I planted seeds hoping for their fruits
And hoping one day their gardens will thrive.

71. If they bear other than what I hoped,
It is no fault of mine if their palms twisted.