1. For whom have the gazelles raised their longing eyes?
Standing for a cause, and bending with desire,

2. They sang the songs that delight the soul, and presented
In the arts of yearning, to the lovelorn, consolation.

3. Deafen then your hearing to the guide calling them
A magic charm, and the voice of his raven giving answer.

4. Then she breathed, alone, sighs that caused
Tears to flow from the eyes in pairs.

5. They raised the curtains, like ships, all together,
Enveloped in fine linen and brocade.

6. Among them is she who has ensnared my passion
With her beauty and her languid grace.

7. A crescent moon lighting up the dark night,
And half-asleep eyes with kohl outlined.

8. A mouth as though its mingled saliva
Were the pure extract of sweet wine.

9. When you look upon her braids upon
The reddish tree, they are like bunches of unripe dates.

10. And the gait of her trailing dress, whenever
She rises, stoops under its weight.

11. My patience with youth has gone, for long
Have I frequented the ways of passion.

12. And I have drunk from the cup of wine, the best of it,
In a glass, from the hand of the cupbearer, tempered.

13. As though the cupbearer had brought together for us
The doe’s brightness in a glass vessel .

14. And the wine flask between us was imagined
To be a slaughtered gazelle, seasoned with herbs.

15. One attacking my rock with his forehead I surprised
With glass.

16. And one who rivaled me in youth pulled out
For me his lying tongue.

17. I did not consider him my equal, so I protected my honor
From insulting every adversary and attacker.

18. And when I meet a man the cause of whose hatred
Is jealousy, I do not attempt to cure it with treatment.

19. How can I stay among the scheming of the hostile
And the hypocrisy of another who pretends to be a friend?

20. I have open country as an escape
From entanglements with the enemy and getting lost.

21. You were created to console worries, gazelles
Fleeing, like the oryx, from distress.

22. They carry travelers over the floods of dawn,
Shining among the sand dunes and emptiness.

23. I have not been satisfied with contentment, nor have I answered
The call of the impoverished, fearing discomfort.

24. But the people of Umar were enough for me in their nobility
Without them I would not have enjoyed comfort.

25. Among the wealthy they guaranteed me that I am with Muhammad
And Suhah Nabhan and Ahmad the aspirer.

26. They are the victorious generations in their glory
Among the people - their eminence has spread.

27. The ancients established in generosity a tradition
Which they took and went straight upon the path.

28. You would think every bright-faced one among them
Has a moon beaming from beneath his crown.

29. Enduring the difficulties of the means to ascend,
In the constriction of every hated and feared thing.

30. Their necks have overcome, as though their clothes
Were worn over coats of mail.

31. They are not disturbed if called to horror
Except to firmness and saddling.

32. Patience, when embracing thinness, and the ribs
Deaf to whatever anguish.

33. And the horses beneath armor in the clamor of war
They attack with bared swords and glass.

34. And the eggs above eggs flashing among them
Meteors glittering in a gloomy sky.

35. And you see the delegations at the basins of their hospitality
Coming in groups to groups.

36. They come, regarding the thirst of privation, to a coast
A sea of bounty, not brackish.

37. And the voluntary favor of their hospitality rains upon the barefoot
Pardon, like the raining of clouds bursting.

38. You have lived, O people of Umar, for the protection of the fearful
And the answer to the fervent supplicant.

39. The wasteland, indeed its refuge and its rescue
Are through you, the flowing water of its burning torch.