1. Run my horses, bid me farewell,
You will soon graze the land of Hayy after a little while.

2. Indeed my heart leaps towards glory,
And at al-Qana one day lies the cure for my anguish.

3. If I take the night as an impregnable coat of mail,
The dire straits of time will seem trivial to me.

4. The blood of heroes is upon me, if I do not choose it
As a herd that rends the earth after a herd.

5. So I take my right or its dust rises
From the plain, from a land of abject misery.

6. I have no need but for glory, and rarely
Does my hope fail, and the messenger brings blame.

7. Yet the lands attack me when prosperity springs forth,
Though none with might can help the weak.

8. I brandish my arm against whoever wants it
With a shining white sword of polished blades.

9. My resolves gallop to glory, not to the encampment,
And nobility, not affluence, adorns my character.

10. I inure my soul to abstain from passion
And a heart that accepts not the woes of love.

11. I deny most men my friendship, save for a few,
So no tyrant lording over me feels secure.

12. I conceal in my ribs a secret I protect,
Fearing the day when my worries are proclaimed.

13. My boon companion, when he wishes, inclines his ear
To drink in my worries, heedless of my qualms.

14. I refuse to be humiliated while my reins are in my hand,
And my path is not yet cut off from me.

15. Any blood on my hands, though it weigh down the people,
Is not heavy to me, however heavy.

16. My path is evident in the watering places,
Unless the youths hide it with their sleeves.

17. How many a beloved who gave me his goblet to drink
While my heart concealed from him was not inclined!

18. The tattoo between us and him has become effaced
By the dusty strings of the rabāb.

19. Restraining the soul from what it desires
Is harder than driving away the slain.

20. My friends both hope and fear
My whims, and some dispute my paucity of reason.

21. It pleases my eye to walk away envied,
For the envious envy none but the noble.

22. Never has my hand clasped in friendship the hand of a traitor,
Nor has my nature been too narrow to host a guest.

23. The first flaw in a man are flaws in his origins,
And the first treachery of a man is the treachery of a friend.

24. Wretched is he who mounted the steed of weakness,
But the back of resolve does not bend.

25. A breeze in life is sweet to one who inhales it,
But what reposing thereafter, and what anguish!

26. Nights pass the youth like the shadow’s passing,
With ease, though their gifts are not copious.

27. Days have slipped by me until they cast me
Into what I feared from meeting a miser.

28. I must wash away dishonor thereafter,
By God, what a dishonor that lasts with no washing!

29. The youth thinks ascendance is lasting,
And every rise is followed by a fall.

30. Shall I hope for the edge of a sword, then fear it,
And consent to displease glory by the words of a weakling?

31. With striking did the son of Moses gain his desire,
And the brood of the sublime attain any goals?

32. A man who has set firm, unyielding opinions,
And no view but the right view, clear and direct.

33. He learned from his forefathers and their constancy
Upon glory, from lofty spears and onslaughts.

34. It would not harm him if every tribe
On the day of battle claimed his blood.

35. The enemies know not to drive him back
Except with a choking roar and howl.

36. When dire straits befall his household,
And the neck of reason inclines in every direction.

37. The resolve of an obstinate tyrant in his view,
And the mind of a man who did not seek counsel.

38. A deceiver dragging the train of his guiles,
And giving much without being asked.

39. How many a defiant foe ambitious against him
Has time made vile through long nights!

40. He gave free rein to security until it shaded him
With the dust of a towering pillar and cavalry.

41. How many a womb has carried him while he raged,
Then he turned back to kindness, with no delay.

42. When enemies are far from his tyrannies,
They cannot feel safe from one who arrives and reaches them.

43. It is as if I see them in the morning, woken up
By a bay stallion, of excellent stock.

44. A reminder that does not shock the people with a blow,
Except that it removes blood and a slain man.

45. A warning to you from his plotting, his heart indeed
Is resolute over secrets, not prone to blame.

46. And a commotion that twists the hands of its steeds,
And what clamor there is of tumult and neighing!

47. A cavalry that floats over the hilltops as if
Their pavilions are the necks of howling wolves.

48. Lean horses whose lengthened emaciation is as if
Their ribs were the branches of a drooping plant.

49. They surge in vales where the hillocks are no refuge,
And neither lofty nor rocky ground can withstand them.

50. They pastured the thorns of spears as if
Tomorrow they would pasture in a wide plain.

51. How often they penetrated the darkness of night with youths
Who see the defects of night like level ground!

52. Behind them the tubes of spears stalk
Like lions accompanied by the thickets of a forest.

53. Swords of refusal in hands refusing humiliation,
And every tall man with a sword in the grip of one tall.

54. They overwhelm opinions before their armies,
And the white of the gazelles is an overwhelming white.

55. If the invading army plunders behind it,
Its plunder in war is nothing but pillage.

56. God has granted you this feast greeting you,
Like the return of glory, heralding its arrival.

57. Even if our feast had no more than that it
Points to prosperity – what a pointer!

58. It struggled against days only hoping
For a day pleasing to the eye from you.

59. And spread a heaven filled with your supreme deeds,
A heaven of auspicious stars, not declining.

60. So you attained what time attained of fortune and joy,
For many eras arrived with none to host them.

61. You remained as nights robbed, and what man remains demanding something
Once it passes with no guarantor?

62. You remained and destroyed the enemies, for it
Is the cure of anguish hidden in the ribs.

63. It lessened the offering of an enemy with a lump in the throat,
The plunging of calamity into my family and tribe.

64. If death goes to my enemy, I have consolation
When fate takes away a friend.

65. Yet no death has eluded me
If it came to one I love to eradicate.

66. I intend that never shall a poem cease
To summarize, one day, my death and worries.

67. Speech like the arrangement of pearls, not chaotic,
And words like the boss of a shield, unmatched.

68. I am no innovator beyond this, above it,
Nor the like of it, in conciseness or prolixity.