1. Shall I deny my glory, known to my peers?
While others are known without any marks,

2. Or features that give light.
Curse this land that fooled me,

3. And my hopes into which it blew.
Time favours its slips,

4. And stores perdition, just for me.
When equalled in anguish, it repeats the bitterness,

5. And makes me drink from its cup again.
If only my share of this age would end its blows on me!

6. An age whose youth surpassed the keenest orators.
I asked one who lived through life

7. And tore apart my peers - where is that pliant youth?
Where are the white days of my life?

8. Fate walked between me and demise,
Changing my state in the darkness.

9. I looked - and alas for her mother! -
A look at the white in my temple,

10. They say it invites youth, but I say it mourns it.
People have broken the rope of loyalty,

11. And set their hearts on deceit and betrayal.
I count, in this age, my friend as my first enemy,

12. And those closest to me harm me most,
As do those near me, more than all people.

13. How much shall I curb my resolve?
How long will the sheath eat away my sword?

14. By God, if my resolve had any power,
You'd hear of me wandering the land,

15. Changing the state of all people.
I have become the prey of disasters -

16. There is no shelter but in me.
My two friends - the darkness of night,

17. And the desert's thirst lead my steeds.
I set forth from the blood of war,

18. And the sparks of clashing swords.
My arrows rattle on the necks

19. Of the hillocks and lofty dunes.
Each endless day my pillars shake,

20. Groaning with the pain of separation.
At the yellow pools, the color of molten gold in the sand,

21. I arrived before the tribes.
By God, my journey and my provisions!

22. The darkness leaned away and the dawn appeared
Like a blonde wrapped in new robes.

23. I see a darkness the men avoid,
Surrounded by towering sand dunes.

24. I will hurl myself into its terrors -
Either glory or perdition.

25. I sleep satisfied in disgrace,
While my glory is stripped bare.

26. I herd the cattle without consulting
A creator or tribes to lead me astray.

27. And I make do without gifts
Though death comes without meeting me.

28. I praised in verse and for reward,
My writings were accepted as poems.

29. So I declared blame until I left
Ugly gashes staining his honour.

30. Yet I did not satirize him in my rhymes,
But only the meter I employed.

31. Would that these words could speak
To one with hearing ears!

32. Do not call hope misguided,
Sometimes the guide goes astray.

33. The overbold may recoil,
As the bloody hand draws back.