1. I gathered all my kin around me on Eid
My family gathered around me, all my hopes

2. They called me father though I had no children among them
To these people I was but an uncle and brother-in-law

3. It was as if I and they in this house were
Looking out over diverse nations and generations

4. I prepare them for a tomorrow I prepare
On this earth my troops and heroes

5. How good is the fellowship I tended and witnessed
Of mothers and fathers and children

6. I see no separation in time that cuts
One settled, fluttering, wandering

7. Nor is any whisper lost in their intimacy
Nor the baby camel among the herd and calves

8. I lived in the countryside, suffering no oppressor
Of men, no debauched and effeminate one

9. I lived on fruit and greens, on what I owned
And water in which chains dangled

10. I forbid meat for myself as provision and count it
Food of predators, like the lurking wolf

11. And I fight for the peaceful living
Bird and beast, every battle

12. Had plants sense, I would pity them
And abstain from plants too, not voracious

13. It is as though my village where I live
Is a state and its mayor my deputy

14. I have long withdrawn from society, belonging to me
Every side my care and preoccupation

15. I found in the company of the ignorant, affection
I did not find from other than ignorant men

16. I never found in one obscure, his silence
Offensive as from one famous, pretentious

17. I carried the burdens of my people, heavy
For them, and they never felt my burdens

18. My status diminished until none recall me
Who availed my words and deeds

19. I never cared for my eyes or wellbeing
As I cared for the covenant, in my resolve and travels

20. I care not if my soul is safeguarded
While my nerves and limbs are diseased

21. It is no consolation to see a country
Other than mine, more deserving of and loyal to me

22. Had they not neglected and ignored me
Their neglect and disregard would not have lasted

23. Had I been tried by tyrants, they would not have reached
The extent of loved ones in subjugating and debasing me

24. I want the freedom of the arid valley, and for me
My wounds, pains and fetters from it

25. Fate hurries me at times and delays me
At times, hastening and stalling are equal to me

26. Had I reached the end of my term
I would have gained nothing from life spans

27. My poetry is the same, whether obedient or disobedient
Just as my increase and decrease are the same in it

28. No singing helps atop a hill
No weeping helps atop ruins

29. I have realized what disinterested me in people
And indifference was my honor and esteem

30. I never mistrust what exists
Or pretend to refuse what is lost

31. If time brought me comforts galore
It would only come to complete and incapacitate me

32. I do not ask about my due and its value
Even if it were weighed on my scales and measures

33. If I have no office or entourage one day
My satisfaction is my livestock and goat-hair tents

34. Am I not one who called the factions and they came together
And the command shifted from state to state?

35. Enough that they return contritely
To what yesterday made them hostile to me

36. I see cordiality by the load amongst them
Yet I have not gained a mote of it from them

37. I remained wary of conflict between them
Suspicious in my mind and thoughts

38. I fear for their messengers his intentions though they
Are before tyrants and thickets from him

39. His policy remains as it was
Changing in its forms and guises

40. I hope with him the place of caress for them
Not the place of prey in a ravenous wolf's fangs

41. The fate of their unity was charged to him
He is guarantor of change and replacement

42. If their day of good does not come altogether
There is completion and fulfillment in every tomorrow

43. The atmosphere portends a fire storm
Of war, and the earth portends a quake

44. Relief may yet come to them in their strait
As horrors crowd out horrors

45. O youths of poetry, this is your season
And festival of precious, worthy rhetoric

46. You have fulfilled the trust of art, and have not
What you deserve of kindness and welcome

47. It suffices you that among you are brothers
Of wealthy men, lords and nobles

48. Who strive with ears and hearts
And return with neither glory nor money

49. You possess the mysteries of the world
Yet cannot attain lofty position in it

50. What breadth is afforded you in the earth
Is like that for a soothsayer and fraud

51. They said poetry expired after the two masters
And none made its empty arena thrive but them

52. Yet after them in Egypt I am not alone
For Egypt teems with the like of me

53. Will they be distracted by a caravan that passed
From what lies ahead, the next arrival?

54. If the living see no place after the dead
There is no good in grieving and lamenting

55. Every building not succeeded by
Its builder's sons is ruinous and futile

56. Better a barren rugged preserve
Of hardship and infertility

57. Than a fertile country made lawful prey
The kingdom is soldiers and the fortress around it