1. I passed by the abode of Layla though it was in ruins,
Refusing with determination to change and transform.

2. Its love songs almost speak out of lamentation
To its questioner about its people, “Do not pretend!”

3. I stood there, not as a judge, for I had no need,
Nor for the house to reveal anything, that I might ask.

4. Except that I said, “Would that its people might be
With it while Fortune was more erring and confused!”

5. You cried, though no half-razed abode should make you weep
With a sheltering pigeon tower between its shadowed side apartments.

6. I commended it in its entirety to the Ever-Living who maintains,
They came, supplicating God who envelops and pervades.

7. I commended it to youths of war and vigor
As noble ransomers releasing the enchained captive.

8. How many desolate sands are below Layla’s abode, as though
The pleats of its upper wraps were clad in intertwisted coatings!

9. The confused, mazy sands of ‘Unayzah in the morning
Are delusion wherein the mirage glistens as the most prolific of all.

10. Fluttering about, none attains deliverance from its wastes
Save those who have passed away or those who trust in God.

11. The travelers in its barren wastes stagger along
Fearing for their guide, bearing what he has borne.

12. When the bull wanders in confusion, you liken its figure
To a wild ox of the wastes, shaggy and disheveled.

13. The canal of Junayy splits before its waters.
When the vessels strive with poles, the beasts stampede.

14. When the caravan is waylaid therein, you find
No trace save its lower stones disjointed and scattered about.

15. I crossed its known parts and the parts unknown,
When the beasts ceased their prowling at dawn to advance.

16. With the blood of Zamzam’s valiant defenders, as though
The gurgling of hawks or the gurgling of sandgrouse flocks.

17. Crowding together in the folds of little dunes, advancing
When the trackers went searching at dawn for lost camels.

18. Jostling dead centre within mirk, launching forth
When the wind on a day of storm gave the command to set out.

19. As if she were a demon of the waste belong to it
When the bamboo rods creaked “Alas” with their bending.

20. And with the dawn she turned away from haunts of beasts, appearing
A Nabataean dog too tired to raise its chained foreleg.

21. She escaped when the day departed as a terrified
Oryx had escaped, grazing freely then turning to flee.

22. As though I had clothed a departing groom, gathering provisions,
Bearing the fiery heat, alone with shaggy camels.

23. He pastured amid its steep tracks from early morning
Till late afternoon, then climbed its mountain passes.

24. He clung to one of its cables and got beyond
Other cables, lodging on the high crag of a cliff notched by time.

25. Bathed by a north wind, never in his life had he known
A night more painful and longer than it in suffering.

26. Throughout the night, the Pleiades immersed him
Into a flock of sheep from a shepherd's cooked bones.

27. Dark of eyebrow, as if a glowing coal
In the evening had been his night fire and morning collyrium.

28. At dawn the north wind greeted him,
A brother of the bow who bends twigs of wild plum for arrows.

29. When he saw he could do naught but endure,
He intended to confront them with evil first.

30. He attacked his hardy mount as if it were
Wild game that had dallied behind while he halted.

31. He wheeled about as the monk wheeled about, hoping
Through God to gain proximity though he were slain.

32. He wheeled about, but they did not catch him, for
He was too proud; instead he drew near and confronted them.

33. Brandishing a weapon the like of which none had seen—
The weapon of his brother Hayja, the keenest and most just.

34. He fenced with them until his throat grew crimson,
And he had filled his inner depths with their blood and quenched his thirst.

35. His throat cast off their throats, undulating,
The casting off of the smooth file that reciprocates movement.

36. He remained the day long, his shadow pierced
By the tips of their swords, until he was all atremble.

37. His palm went forth, as the Yemeni sword in its sheath
Pure and bare, and he gave it a smooth polish.

38. The proud man of noble soul, defending his flesh,
When he wished to distance himself from it, took his time.