1. Alas! I see not the days pass strangely,
Nor events vanish in their calamities,

2. Nor through days does one era recognise
Another of eras, except the insightful one.

3. And I saw not a man's words but as his palms,
Afflicted and felicitous through them.

4. And no people are deluded like their minds,
Nor did the like of it produce gains like its gains.

5. And no people are misguided from a plot,
That misguides them the day it was contrived

6. Nor from the gentle, highborn one's slip of sandal,
That flung about its straps and twisted thongs.

7. And exposing a man's words debases his judgement,
Yet gentility in men's morals adorns them.

8. And the most ignorant of a people's ignorance,
Is that within their enemies, and their morals' ugliest

9. Is selfishness. I have seen the garb of forbearance,
Though stripped from its wearer, a goblet of gifts.

10. And I saw no evildoer make easy his evils for his folk,
Nor the paths of kindness rugged and jarring.

11. And not from his reassured soul does man acquire most,
But rather men's reasons are mostly lies.

12. Nor did I find spears to be keenest when piercing,
But their keenest points were those that hit their mark.

13. Of injustice or a people who mount their own tribe,
Harnessed with enemies, intractable and zealous.

14. Quraysh assailed me with enmity and rancour,
As though they knew not I am close kin.

15. They plot against me while I watch,
And with arrows of harm strike me unawares; may their Schemer suffice me!

16. And it was pleasing when I stumbled on an annoyance,
That straitened painfully, but for which its healer sufficed.

17. So how much have I guarded against what was between us,
And she was not to me as a hyena howling!

18. And I knew not the rain from which I was nurtured,
And did not entreat that its torrents might come.

19. And I accompanied them at their houses in the valley,
Though no blame attaches itself to houses.

20. But for the most distant stranger they erected a tower,
Where he alighted like an unerring arrow.

21. They attacked me on every side with afflictions,
With lies and slander the wagging tongues of vipers and their aged.

22. With no proof saving the words of a slanderous liar,
Who agitates the still woodlands like a lion in its lair.

23. By my father's life, between me and them,
Surely they have lighted upon ears that respond!

24. So ears will be found only obedient,
Whether content or resentful hearts possess them.

25. What! In every land to which I came, was I
For fear of the Banu Fihr like a stranger?

26. Though I abode in the tribe's bosom, the people's faces
Yet turned from me, loathing me without disguise.

27. O Banu Murra's daughter, where is Murra
And us from you and you from us and her husband,

28. Khuzayma, and the wombs and mothers' brothers?
Since we are not given our due as siblings’ right,

29. Upon siblings who did not fear want reaching their homes,
Which wombs then are sought and which apportioned their share?

30. For us are kinsfolk of this world, while for people with you
Are pleasures of vanities and sins.

31. You have filled resolute warriors against us,
While your traces in us seep slowly like wounds.

32. You will find what you loved in your foe befallen you,
When the horses are roused to ferocious anger.

33. Thus I have seen in you no way but this,
Nor any nourishment but the tainted that I disdain.

34. You have filled the land’s expanses with justice and compassion,
While none can aid me but the courtyard of a ruin.

35. You have silenced my tongue against a foe whose steps
Wound it with vipers and worms that creep.

36. Thus I became like silent ashes, while my obligation
Befriended suppressing and ignoring the obligated share.

37. Thus your wombs will not long for you, for they
Are idols that no night visitor seeks.

38. When any slick shoots up of evil between us,
You head for it until its rod is cropped.

39. You left us an outcast clan of Lu’ayy ibn Ghalib,
Like Sama when he perished and destroyed his line of tents.

40. Where then is the affliction of religion from us and you,
When each palm refrained from spilling blood?

41. But you do not requite a blessing,
While others of open hand requite it.

42. Yet yours is a manifest favour,
That falls short of you, outstripping messengers.

43. We brought yearning souls and hearts to you,
And bosoms that have long loved you.

44. So how could we ever, O Banu Shams, turn away
While you brandish claws and fangs against us?

45. Can beloveds reckon that parting hurts them?
Aye, it pains the soul when a beloved leaves!

46. But patience in the loss of a injurious brother,
Is consolation when the soul might break.

47. I have seen the torment of water when denied it,
So enough for you what you cannot avoid drinking.

48. If there be no riding but on saddled camels,
The led have no choice but to mount them.

49. They ready honeyed gall for the most distant,
While how can we be blamed for what taints it?

50. Eat what lies with you of mounts and food,
When grubs are veiled that you were wont to dig up!

51. Yearning souls and eyes will remember us from you,
Brimming, that did not hoard the tears from their setting,

52. What time the earth is about to engulf us should it engulf,
And the unknown issues from affairs and their secret hearts.

53. We left the tribal precinct dear to us for you,
And the glens of duty, its gentle hills,

54. The Muzdalifa vale on the day all throng there,
When the sun is screened by its western wall,

55. The plain of Hira and all the meadows,
Where the banners of Thawr and Dubay’a met.

56. Our steeds’ watering place was Ukaz, as though
Early morning birds in fear took flight.

57. And the tomb of Abu Dawud where fissures
Split over him, arteries and grey hairs,

58. Ruffled by the dawn winds in desolation,
Stirring the sorrow of jinn and the weep of old women.

59. The Prophet's daughters and the son of the Prophet's daughter,
Who almost moved the firm mountains to lament.

60. The sanctuary of God's house! They are doves
At Zamzam when devotion is paid courting its awe.

61. On Abu Qubays' slope mourning a slain man,
As a mother is bowed by grief for her boy.

62. Our father who aged into his tenth decade for his folk,
Blood-money sums he reckoned trailing trains.

63. He handed them down so people felt secure in
What he legislated for them, straight and warped.

64. Booty never gathered three or four,
Questions in leather bags of varied kinds.

65. Then when you banished us from Tihama altogether,
The houses closest to you, nearest kin,

66. You stirred against us in every east and west,
Us and ours, your claws and flashing fangs.

67. So who else, who else, to what refuge
In what starry night has an ardent lover sped?

68. Fihr ibn Malik chides me about the ritual ablution,
Not knowing what the breast conceals of flaws.

69. Had the sincere advisor of their folk died,
Mankind altogether would have met their ends.

70. Were esteeming the advisor for his advice immortalising,
His advice would have filled the world throughout its days.

71. I comfort my soul regarding Lu'ayy ibn Ghalib—
Alas far from me!—then alas far from me a healer!

72. His father is my father, nearer,
And my mother his mother, so whence estranged me, how made fearful?

73. If I wean my soul firmly from the Banu Nadr,
It disobeys me, untamed by gentle reining.

74. But by my father Fihr and my mother Malik!
Even if her sins against me multiplied.

75. They are God's elect, the virtuous,
In whom the fires of guidance rose and blazed.

76. Upon them the raiment of Nadr, his two sons Malik
And Fihr—unadulterated lineage, grey unstained.

77. Them I ransom with my mother their mother!
When the white dawn reveals what night robes concealed.

78. The pace is theirs that only war awakens,
When throats are slashed and blood flows freely down.

79. With their pace, the short blades reached far,
To guard when war flared hot its embers.

80. Persian spears reinforce them,
And bolster when the champion's spear proves false.

81. Lahmim are a noble clan of valiant chiefs,
When the grey year spreads widely its robes.

82. Maghawir are dauntless heroes, energetic when
Horses no longer stand firm but flee terrified.

83. Their cooking pots boil at their thresholds’ edge
When the Pleiades sets keeping night watch.

84. When the small-eyed rock-doves moan,
Nor cease from the cloud's refrain, weeping.

85. When the dappled herd stirs and the sun still lives,
Pigeons in a flock huddled together like truths.

86. And the stallion is silenced and neighs to be linked
To a herd that no ram covered, with no herder.

87. And the warmth of the hearth anticipated it, but did not
Aid the guest with platter often borrowed.

88. I comfort myself regarding Lu’ayy ibn Ghalib,
Yet far from me, then far from me, its remedy!