It flashed as though the lion’s paw(1) had unsheathed a keen, gleaming blade;
As though it were a dapple-grey steed racing through the dust whenever it broke into a run.
It showed itself like the wind(2) that shifts across the glowing embers of ghada wood,
So you would think a Zanjī(3) had opened his eyes wide—or closed them just as quickly;
Or like a tongue of fire whose flame rises high, then falls away.
Alas for that lightning whose brilliance flared over Dhāt al-Aḍā!
It called back to mind a pledge once made by al-Ghuwayr and now long since gone.
My heart said to me, “Do you mention a need(4) only to turn aside,
Seeking(5) the very one who wounded you?—may I ransom that healer!”
O aim of the heart, you have left my heart an open mark
For arrows that the relentless decree of fate(6) lets fly.
So I spent the night certain that sleep for me was finished,
Until the tail end of night(7) drew back and the darkness was about to disperse;
Dawn advanced, bleaching the fringes of gloom,
And in the east a sword of light(8) was drawn against the west and brandished(9),
Like a hawk(10) that, roused at daybreak from its sleep, shakes itself and springs aloft.

[Then the year 592 AH began.]
In the month of Rajab of that year, al-ʿAzīz came from Egypt in the company of his uncle al-ʿĀdil at the head of the armies; they entered(11) Damascus by force and drove out