1. What ruins did you mention that my sword laid waste,
With winter's guests as witnesses against them?

2. They knew I was loyal to their Lord,
So one tribe moved on and drove another before it.

3. I know that cur who prowls about seeking camps
While your mother crawls abjectly to us.

4. We built a fire for her that bored through the camps
And a guest-blaze that was kept burning long.

5. When the dry branches of the wasting-stick were emptied out
Its sides collapsed until the joints stuck out.

6. When it was set up for the raiders they thought it
An ostrich of confederates with a short neck.

7. They passed the night while the horses pawed the ground
In its stalls, the water and iron of their sires forgotten.

8. We sent two scouts who tried
To make them come down, but still their forelocks tossed.

9. They spent the night counting the stars perplexed
While their grub was snatched by grasping hands.

10. When we watered them from the leather bucket they filled up;
Their nostrils expanded and the veins of their forelocks pulsed.

11. When they had their fill of the water they wanted something from us
We did not want.

12. When we realized it was the mother of a pig
Her trusted ones banned her and she lost her defender.

13. Whenever we are wronged in an easy matter, their cheeks
Become like foxes' jowls.

14. They pass the night while their legs are fire-sticks for their brands
Their staves brands, till walking wearies them.

15. Pocked of nostril, hollow of staff,
Scowling of face, their homes fixed on the gravel,

16. They came to us while the dusk was uncertain,
Locusts of winter whose fuel had run out.

17. The desert of their claws stretches away behind them
While the blaze of our fire shines wherever its fuel is damp.

18. I spent a day in their company then their bad luck passed
And good fortune returned to them.

19. For that day has no match but we see
That this world lasts only a little while.

20. He takes the emptiness for granted as though he were
Anointed with the ends of the houses and their corner posts.