1. The waste lay fallow while they were destroyed by good fortune,
Neither prosperity nor hardship could change them.

2. The saddled camels, weak from hunger, belonged to a penniless man with dependents; if they went hungry, he was helpless.
No miser stayed in an abode with neither wife nor child, unkempt, whom the cycles passed by rich, yet he had no wealth.

3. They imitated him like a cloak thrown on a grave, following his ways blindly.
No skilled artisan lived there, neither armored nor outfitted with wood.

4. Some were friendly to the house, others wept and grieved.
The beasts shared it with the humans, for each house has its people.

5. These did not find refuge, nor did those weep for them.
Were there ever couples like them, or were they always aloof?

6. The white hid the blackness of the pollarded palm's heart, not dyed with henna.
I count myself fifty though forty I feel, folded up as I folded.

7. The cause stretches then contracts after being drawn out.
It parts from its limit like a bow parted for mourning.

8. The wind assists the seeker of the swift she-camel, with fear and helpers.
The good, marked out, with mighty wings attained what they sought.

9. Indelibly inscribed are the glories of life and the hereafter that they drank.
The reputation not the proclamation benefits the liar and the sincere alike.

10. The formidable investigators expose its people's shame when they glance back with censure.
They take the evil from its origin, though it was the hump of the camel.

11. Like the leafless, most barren tamarisk, with misery after misery.
Honest, they walked among people behind piety, praise, and dignity.

12. The elect of them have taken the best when the cups were in their hands.
Their origin in pearls, the middle course they kept.

13. The flowing springs, when they raced to the mosque ahead of other racers and struck the ground.
They won it with no rivals, unlike the rogues who seized the choice spoils.

14. For it is for the vile climbers who covet it out of greed.
Their rise in the recognized degrees was scorning the powers and officials, not for ambition.

15. Below it they found the heedless as the carpet-spreader spread it out in ignorance.
Then after the wasteland appeared a young she-goat with bleating and clamor,

16. Her neck bare, neither adorned with beauty nor modesty.
The kindlers lit fires when the guards prevented the young boys and shady ones from her.

17. Not with bundles fueled beneath cooking pots erected.
Nor guests who ascend, nor cups whose handles the flames lick.

18. And they flung between them, not of us, brands and embers.
Roaring, like a stallion roaring, rending apart the howling she-wolves.

19. When the hillsides donned their spotted garments, though it was the false claim of the gleaming mirage.
With the fading, promised rainbow, hidden from the nearby view.

20. The sly she-hyenas yelped at him, bold daring creatures.
The cold clothed it in torrents, chilling it,

21. While the dust of its trails covered it in dust.
It took refuge in the ravines among the cliffs where the ibex and goats slept.

22. Enough of you and your long night, that tried the patience of the emaciated.
Until the sun's brow appeared and the eastern brow was unveiled from it.

23. It shook off the frost as the withered branches fall from the gathered wood.
The afflictions burned it in the blaze with intensity like play.

24. So it wandered in the meadows, with a bent stature, and a grieving heart.
Then it fled when fright permeated it, and extracted anger like boiling water.

25. It threw her down, the hated carcass, bloodying its bowels and burial place.
And attained from her the roasting, like a firebrand while her shoes were torn.

26. While they in the sacred month, lean in their sacred months that made them lean.
Bearing their goblets upon the glass that the beautiful cups polished.

27. No settled person recovers from them, from the swaying of the wine-skin and drinking cups.
Not for a share that rivets the earth where the camels kneel.

28. As if they were the meharis rushing to the young she-camel trussed with ropes.
Bearing upon their chests waterskins for others' staffs and wars.

29. Their tribe did not restrain their dissentions, nor did the caravan bite from their udders.
Until their bodies were like apes in the white wilderness that the palms enclose.

30. Their plumage did not pierce them with its piercing, nor were the reeds refreshed by them.
United against raids like necklaces with ivory tablets and engraved gems upon them.

31. Like kidneys except that their heads shook with poisons and sorcery upon them.
Neither grateful when cared for, nor in their poverty is their bareness doubtful.

32. Those, not these, are preferred when the woman is chosen and the braces selected.
They penetrate the dunes and rolling terrain without whips if they are reproached.