على قدر أهل العزم تأتي العزائم

Determinations arrive in proportion to the resolve of the resolute, / and noble deeds arrive in proportion to the noble.

Trifles loom large in the eye of the petty, / while great things shrink in the eye of the great.

Sayf al-Dawla tasks his army with burdens of monumental scale / before which vast, overflowing hosts have failed.

He demands from people what dwells within his own soul— / something fierce beasts never dare to claim.

The oldest soaring birds wish their weapons could match his own— / desert vultures, both fledglings and ancients.

What matter if they were created without talons, / when his flashing swords and their hilts were forged for him?

Does the red fortress of al-Hadath recognize its own color, / and does it know which of the two downpours is raining—the clouds or the blood?

The gleaming rain clouds watered it before his arrival, / but when he drew near, it was watered by severed skulls.

He built it up and raised it while lances battered lances, / and the crashing waves of death surged all around.

It once behaved as though possessed by madness, / but now it wears amulets woven from the bodies of the slain.

It was a stray prize driven off by time, which you forced back / into the fold of the faith with straight spears while time itself obeyed grudgingly.

The nights strip away every single thing they ever take, / yet toward what they take from you, they stand as debtors.

When your intention takes the form of an active verb, / it leaps to pass before any jussive can freeze it.

How can the Romans and Russians ever hope to tear it down, / when this thrusting of lances serves as its base and pillars?

They brought their cases before the battlefield while deaths sat as judges: / thus no innocent person died, and no tyrant survived.

They came at you dragging heavy iron armor, as though / they had marched forth on steeds stripped of legs.

When their mail flashed, you could not tell the bright swords apart / from their matching tunics and turbans.

An army whose march spans east and west, / filling the ear of the constellation Gemini with its heavy rumble.

Every tongue and nation is gathered within its ranks, / so that translators alone make the talkers understood.

Praise be to the moment whose fire melted away all dross, / leaving behind nothing but the flashing blade and the fierce warrior.

It cleaved what neither mail nor lances could ever block, / and every coward who refuses to clash fled from the heroes.

You stood firm where death is beyond a doubt for anyone standing, / as though resting within the eyelid of Fate while it sleeps.

Champions streamed past you wounded and routed, / while your face remained bright and your mouth wore a smile.

You pushed past the limits of mere courage and intellect, / straight to the point where people whisper that you know the unseen.

You folded their wings inward toward their hearts with a crushing grip / that suffocates both the outer pinions and the inner feathers.

With blows that struck their crowns before victory had arrived, / and reached their throats just as victory stepped forward.

You treated standard lances with such contempt you cast them aside, / until it seemed the sword itself was scolding the spear.

Whoever seeks magnificent victory will find that its keys / are nothing other than light, sharp, flashing swords.

You scattered them all across the slopes of al-Uhaydib, / just as silver coins are showered over a bride.

Your horses trample the mountain nests perched upon the peaks, / even though plenty of feast food litters those heights.

The chicks of the mountain falcons mistake your arrival / for their own mothers returning—those fierce, hard-hoof warhorses.

When the horses approach the steep ledges, they slide down on their bellies, / just as desert vipers slither across bare ground.

Does this Domestic charge forward every single day, / with his back leading the way and his face rebuking his advance?

Must he taste the lion's scent before he recognizes it, / when even unreasoning beasts know the smell of lions?

The heavy, crushing charges of the Prince have struck him down, / grieving him with the loss of his son, his son-in-law, and kin.

He fled thanking his comrades for escaping death's edge, / because enemy skulls and wrists kept those blades fully occupied.

He has learned to understand the voice of the Damascene blades among his men, / even though the voices of swords speak a foreign tongue.

He rejoices at what you gave him—not out of foolishness, / but because any plunderer who escapes you counts himself the winner.

You are not merely a king routing a rival monarch; / you are the force of strict monotheism routing polytheism.

Adnan takes pride in him rather than Rabi'ah, / and the whole world boasts of him above any single capital.

All praise is yours for these pearls of mine whose words I string, / since you are the one who grants them and I am the weaver.

Your generous gifts bear me swiftly into the heat of battle, / so that I am never blamed nor you ever regretful.

Carried upon every winged steed rushing toward it on foot, / the moment the din of battle strikes its ears.

O you who are a sword that is never returned to its scabbard, / a blade no one doubts and from which no one finds shelter.

Joy to the crushing of skulls, to glory, to high standing, / to those who hope in you, and to Islam—that you are safe and sound.

How could the All-Merciful fail to protect your twin edges as He always has, / when your splitting of the enemies' skulls is a constant deed?