1. For whom has this abode become desolate with tents?
Its long occupation has changed it.

2. The eye sees of its traces naught
But lines like writing with a pen.

3. Salah wrapped it up and became its tenant,
A Bazite built a nest in its staircase.

4. And three like doves in it,
At their sleeping-place the kindling of embers.

5. I asked the abode, for I had greeted it,
About a beloved, but it was deafly silent.

6. By the life of the abode! Were its people in it
When the tears from your eyes poured down!

7. Grieving, it would not have turned away from one
Who came seeking a cure from sickness.

8. Often I and my companions go early
To an abode like Ukaz’s leather.

9. The horses outdid each other with a brisk gallop
Between Ya'bub and the clan of Sahm.

10. Among them a stallion of noble stock slept
He was like a firmly rooted firmly planted statue.

11. Trusting in their speed without supplies,
Relying on their excellence without lack.

12. But when the forenoon was in its hottest
A small-headed Kahrab with prominent flesh.

13. His flanks sturdy, a ready runner
From which the hindmost of them could not escape.

14. No small weak foal with falling stride
Nor old heavy slow-paced pack-horse.

15. He saw us and came to us directly
Showing his incisors to the utmost.

16. He clashed his tusks against their shoulders
Whenever he turned back breathless.

17. And when he attacked the head of one of them
A Za'ibite against a Rudainite blind of eye.

18. And we ordered him at him from among them
After he had complied, bending his neck or silent.

19. He was like the bucket in the drawer of the waterer.
The bowls slipped from it and were smashed to pieces.