أطاعن خيلا من فوارسها الدهر

I challenge a squadron of horsemen whose riders are the epochs of Time, alone, yet my words are true and patience is with me.

More courageous than I is my own safety with every passing day, yet it never stood firm unless a deep purpose stirred within it.

I grew so accustomed to dealing with sudden doom that I left it asking: has death itself died, or has terror forgotten how to feel?

I plunged forward with the headlong rush of a flash flood, as though I had no soul of my own to lose, or as though I held a blood-feud against destiny.

Let the soul take its full measure before its departure, for two neighbors whose dwelling is a lifetime must eventually part.

Do not reckon glory as mere wine-skins and singing girls; true glory is naught but the unsheathed sword and the daring, unprecedented blow.

It is the hewing of kings' necks and skulls, while black dust-clouds swirl around you and the dense army charges.

And leaving behind you in the world a lingering roar, as though a man's ten fingertips were echoing all at once in his own ears.

If your high merit does not lift you above thanking a lesser man for a meager gift, then the true merit belongs to him who receives the thanks.

And whoever spends the hours collecting his wealth out of fear of poverty—what he has done is poverty itself.

Against the masters of tyranny I ride every swift steed, carrying a youth whose stout chest brims with fearless daring.

He whirls the cups of death among them with his spear-tips, in places where wine is the last thing to be desired.

How many mountains have I crossed that bear witness I am the mountains, and how many oceans that testify I am the ocean!

And a barren wilderness where the riding camels find themselves as centrally placed as the middle of a saddle and its spine.

They pace steadily with us across its vast expanse, as though we rode upon a spinning sphere or its very earth were traveling along with us.

And a day whose end we joined to the night, as though its horizon wore crimson cloaks spun from the lightning's flash.

And a night whose hours we joined to the day, as though its spine were draped in green mantles woven from storm clouds.

And a heavy rain beneath which we fancied that Amir had risen from the dead or built his grave within the clouds.

Or his surviving grandson, Ali son of Ahmad, who pours forth bounty even when I cross paths with empty hands.

Indeed, a cloud whose downpour matches his own is a cloud that holds dominion and pride over every other in the sky.

A noble youth whose heart cannot contain the magnitude of his own aspirations; if a normal heart tried to hold them, his chest would burst.

A place avails nothing without his generosity; and is any land truly useful without open palms and brown spears?

A blessed conjunction where Al-Salt and Amir met, just as an Indian blade strikes against fine steel.

They brought him forth with a noble brow and a commanding presence, so that you see men as few around him even while they are many.

A charismatic leader whom men would gladly ransom with their own lives, he is the flowing tide of generosity that knows no ebb.

I never ceased traveling until yearning drove me toward him, pacing beside me in every famed caravan.

I used to hold reports of him in grand esteem before meeting him, but once we met, the direct experience dwarfed the rumor.

Toward you we drove our mounts across every level plain, through every hollow, with every step facing straight ahead.

If they swelled from an insect's bite they grew frolicsome, as though a generous reward were stinging through their skin.

We came to you leaving the sun and moon behind in our journey's wake, yet in your personal qualities you outshine the sun and moon.

You are like the cooling draft of water without which life is impossible, though even if you were water, the throngs would still crowd around.

Knowledge, forbearance, and discernment summoned me to your door, accompanied by this structured poetry and scattered prose.

And no verse have I uttered whose lines, if written down, would not cause the ink to whiten from the brilliance of their light.

As if the poetic meanings in their polished eloquence were the stars of the Pleiades or your own radiant virtues.

My disgust for the proximity of petty sultans kept me far from them, and spared me the fate of having my skull picked clean by vultures.

I found hardship to be far more pleasant to look upon and easier to bear than the sight of small men puffed up with pride.

My tongue, my eye, my heart, and my ambition—I dedicate every one of these named faculties, and half my very soul, to you.

Nor was I alone in composing all this poetry; rather, my poetry concerning you possesses a poetic inspiration of its own.

It is not merely that the poetry possesses inherent beauty and grace, but that the welcoming smile of your face shines through it.

Even if I were to attain the heavens, I would still know full well that you have reached heights far beyond what mere fate demands.

Through you, the days have at last wiped away their own reproach, as though their creators committed a sin and you became their sole excuse.