1. I knew by the radiance of love a fine shape
Whose essence from shapes of old is sublime

2. The shape made fair by Dhu 'l-Alwadayn effaced
All the coward's imprints, leaving no sign

3. Would that the slanderers might here have stayed
While some friend of bliss departed in time

4. No pact remains binding on us that you made
With blame's forgetter, no word that is crime

5. And girls once camped, troops riding Maisan steeds
Near a band, attended by moaning and pine

6. Trailing the bags, while stooped with humility
In the dust of bleak country, slow and supine,

7. Bowed under each hardship that comes in the train
Of parting, skin chafed upon skin into brine

8. Traveling the night, then alighting a band
Of five, whom the brother of joy cannot fine,

9. While you blamed my vigil and did not sleep
And sleep came to blamers and gave them recline

10. If I'm blamed, I excuse myself, though my fault
Shows clear; still, do not be too prompt to malign

11. Humbler of she-camels, whatever the breach
Is healing for shes who knock timidly at shrine

12. Their critic, old Jusham, son of Bakr, assuages
And they spoke no wise maxims handed from line

13. Their light wits have misled them; they race with disdained
To where the vile man runs in dust and distress fine

14. Gall for them and the nobles--both suffered alike;
They returned and no fragment was safe or condign

15. Al-AkhTal gained from my satires a thrust
At the dullard immersed in defeat and decline

16. What can ArRad servant accomplish with lineage from ancient days gone?
We aspired to glory, and glory made taut every nerve, loin and spine

17. We engaged in the wager and never were bowed
Nor weakened my sturdy, drought-hardened wood fine

18. The poets you see all wonderment-clapped
One still, one reciting his verses line to line

19. My shedding of blood they found constant ever;
My pool never fails, unlike pools diaphanous syne

20. The like have I sought, and he came to seem
Like a forbearing brother, though having no sign

21. Of forbearance--he watches his losses and dreads
His abaser, from the eye of the lesser turns syne

22. Now if you are bested recall you are Taghlibi
Come down to the worst foolishness, evil and malign

23. You will know my clan is Khindif - and rightly
From a people most noble this lineage fine

24. My soul and all souls are ransom for folk
Who built over high ground a great edifice's shrine

25. In Khindif's branch I alighted, where destiny's concerns
Are gathered, affairs disciplined line after line

26. I vie with Rabab's house, Saad's house, and
The Zayd of Manat, what time my steeds were brought to me fine

27. Glory in Mu'add we found was taught and prized-
Complete respect among men came to Tamim clan syne

28. Stern natures of North, when roused in the bare
Highlands of every dawn fruitless and saline

29. We surpassed mankind in each deed of glory
And in rain-stars streaming as blessings divine

30. Does a star set? Another appears in the sky
No blankness, no clouds there, no shadow supine

31. On you I will lavish of bounty and grace
We who do violence to tyranny malign

32. They saw the strong-breasted she-leopard's foray
But knew not the coward faint-hearted in brine

33. Your father we helped till he failed, Abu
Ghuwayth, to fight against all who in enmity shine

34. The Hudhayl we met with sharp blades that released
The red spittle's flow from the gullet's confine

35. Chewed then with his molars did hardened Taghlibi
The far-biting hero no striking could undermine

36. We denied them the meat and the hump-laden camel
And said to the woman, "Begone to your shrine!"

37. Kays' horses attacked--with your mother--and trampled
The cheek-slapping fool with his mouthful of wine

38. Not I killed Jusham ibn Bakr in slaughter
With blood spilled profusely or gobbets of chine

39. You're remnant enough with your braying far out
'Twixt Dann, al-Batiya, and wineskins supine

40. Judged you by your mother when blendings occur
From a dung-rolling cross of Slavs and worm syne

41. What! your sire the eighth of a cubit
Your dam a class zero scored on the beauties' fine?

42. What a stallion he was, the night that she wrapped
Him round in her patchwork of rags threadbare syne!

43. From that stallion came a foal ever inclined
To persistence in evil and probity's decline