You pounced upon our frontiers in that hour,
like thieves who spring while the watchman sleeps.

Did not Sicily, though straitened in her power,
subdue you upon her heaving sea?

Did not all of greater Syria, by sheer force of hand,
be snatched from you in a single crushing stroke;

and Egypt, and the whole land of Kairouan,
and even Andalusia, seized with skull-splitting blows?

We loosed on Constantinople every calamity
and made you drink an unrelenting cup of torment.

Your consecrated shrines and all their precincts are ours,
firm in our grasp, despite whoever fumes.

Is not Bethlehem—and that “Refuse” beside it—
held by the illustrious men of the Muslims?

Your patriarchal seat in Alexandria’s land,
your see in al-Quds, Jerusalem itself—

we wrenched them from you by sheer coercion, to your utter despite,
as the black flanks of a stallion clasp its very legs.

And the chair of Antioch, for a spell and for long years,
remained in our possession, won at the price of savage combat.

Of all your thrones there remain but Rome’s
and Constantinople’s, foremost of the two;

yet surely every one of them must find its way back to us,
under a mighty, overwhelming triumph.

Did not Yazid once descend upon your territory,
at Constantinople’s gate, his swords unsheathed?

And after him Maslama trampled it underfoot,
with a lion-hearted host of massive ranks.

He humbled you, making you serve the mosque we raised among you
in that long-vanished age,

beside the imperial palace in the very heart of your realm—
verily, a parcel carved out by an unrelenting blade.

Your ruler paid to Harun al-Rashid
the tribute of the vanquished and the indemnity of the liable.

By a strength the All-Merciful, the Most Compassionate, bestowed,
we stripped from you a march that takes long months,

all the way to Sabt(1) Yaʿqub and the countryside of Dūmah,
down to the fathomless reaches of the far, inviolate sea.

Have you ever marched in our land for so much as a single week?
Allah has forbidden it to you, O remnants of rout!

Nothing is yours but empty wishes alone—
foolish merchandise, the dreams of a slumbering man.

Wait but a little; the light of the caliphate is returning,
and the dust-begrimed, pallid faces will be laid bare.

Then you will learn the manner of your flight
when the chargers of a crashing army strike you,

just as in the days of old between us and you,
when you yourselves were tallied among the spoils.

You carried off captives beyond the reach of counting,
yet our capture of you is like the countless drops of rain.

Were anyone to attempt to number them, he would reach for the impossible—
who can reckon the feathers upon a dove?

It was only through the sons of Hamdan, and through Kāfūr, that you sallied forth—
base, defiled rabble with puny forearms.