لولا تحِيّةُ بعضِ الأربُعِ الدُّرُسِ

Were it not for the greeting owed to certain ruined and forgotten homes, the sharp edge of my tongue would never have feared the sudden threat of prison.

Do you expect an answer from a silent, speechless home, when its loss of hearing is matched only by its muteness?

I will surely hold you in my memory though time stretches long between us, for how many a beloved has been forgotten as their pact grew old.

O you who complain of cruel blows from fate, rise up and seek Aleppo, pressing forward as a weary traveler desperate to cure his disease.

Strip off your sandals in deep reverence when you draw near to it, just as Moses, the interlocutor of God, did in the sacred valley.

And bear to the finest ruler among all his subjects the purest greetings, untouched by falsehood and unblemished by vice.

He who kisses his spearhead out of love for the thrusts it delivers, as though it were fashioned entirely from dark, luscious lips.

The man whose heart remains most resolute in the darkest night journeys, with no lookout posted and not even the horse's ears twitching to warn of danger.

We weighed the matters of the world, but when he attained his supreme rank of fortune, we simply yielded and stopped measuring.

The world has humbled itself before a man of high honor, who wades through the filth of worldly corruption yet remains entirely unstained.

He washes his hands of the world's defilements a hundred times over, while ordinary ritual requires of the washing of filth no more than seven.

Of boundless bounty, he will spare no vice until his supreme generosity completely eliminates the miserly opponent.

The soul is sustained by its reception of the open air, drawing from it precisely the measure of breath it surrenders.

O knight of the cavalry, the enemies call upon you as a lion when the victim's neck cannot be rescued from your grasping claws.

They attained but a fleeting spark of life, brief as the newborn crescent moon of a single night or a star half-seen in the murky dawn.

Every shadowy shape looms large in their frightened eyes, appearing like rolling hills to watchers heavy with sleep.

Calm yourself, for war is no welcoming bride, nor is clotted blood the scented perfume mixed for a wedding feast.

Your spear has exhausted itself by constantly pulling souls from bodies, just as the endless drawing of water wears away the freshness of the well-rope.

The souls passing away through your spearhead extinguish it, much like the rush of night winds putting out the light of a torch.

I see your forehead as a sun fashioned by the Creator, casting its illumination outward in reflected brilliance.

You have softened the foe, so rejoice and turn away from the battlefield to find rest; long enough have you tested the venomous fangs of war.

You have won not the gentle mistress of the thicket, the sister of the timid gazelle, but the fierce mistress of the lair, sister of the roaring lion.

From a lineage whose neighbors never fear their violence, who cloak the harsh blows of hostile nights in the garment of a grieving friend.

They accompanied the trials of fate with noble characters whose inner essence shines like the pure, unblemished disk of the moon.

It is as though the sword-strikes carved through the wounds of their enemies like hunters cutting down a herd of gazelles feeding peacefully in the thicket.

The spilled blood diffused so strongly that even their attacker mistook the scent for a share of musk rising from a wise knight's wound.

Every spear point that struck among them served the cause of healing as skillfully as the lancet of a compassionate and practiced surgeon.

Those who plunge recklessly into the depths of death while their bridle-reins drag behind their restless, high-strung steeds.

O so-and-so, God has called upon you in your power—brother of noble deeds and son of the flashing, plundering sword.

Do not let it deceive you that poetry is my natural habit, or that I take constant pleasure in stringing rhymes together.

My visits to the domain of poetry have been throughout my life no more frequent than the dipping of a water-bird seeking its food.

People flounder in deep waters of idle talk, grasping at nothing better than manipulative and greasy speech.

They derive no benefit from their empty words—does the mere ringing of a bell ever impart a deep meaning to your ears?

Perhaps you will excuse me if I fall short in my praise, for one like me finds it difficult indeed to abandon the total boycott of verse.