he passes the night in a water-parched waste and greets the dawn in another just like it,
a lean, untamed colt ranging over the backs of perils.
He outstrips the very embassy of the wind wherever it veers,
bursting through by the force of his ever-renewed surge. (1)
When the haze of sleep hems in his eyes,
a watch-guard remains awake within him—the heart of a crafty, lethal Shayḥān warrior.
And whenever the thick horns of battle begin to clash around him,
the back teeth of laughing Death bare themselves in welcome. (2)

Abū Saʿīd al-Makhzūmī, himself renowned for courage, said (3):
What do other clans hope to gain from a man
who rims his eyes with live coals and wraps himself in the night?
He drinks no water save from a well of blood, (4)
and no neighbor of his lies down in fear. (5)