1. I concealed what names I had
In days of youth and drawings and intimacy

2. If not for nights of fear, our hearts
Would not be hostage to love of singing girls

3. From you wafted over Mina valley
Pangs of love - if only they had not wafted!

4. You meant not to pelt the jamarat - rather,
You pelted us, not the jamarat, with temptations

5. How oft we conversed, then we were torn apart
By curly hair and a beautiful face

6. Would that the guide showed us the way
After ensnaring us in unexposed love

7. Would that he had bestowed on our hearts' rope
Favors they could not bear to be obligated for

8. You slept while eyes knew nothing of us
After you had tasted the sweetness of intimacy

9. Your guide from me is a shining light
Illuminating what’s between the chin and temples

10. Be not averse to it or deem it unseemly
It is the dawn, though long it was obscured

11. Thawban distanced himself when fate bore him away
What intimate in nights has not distanced himself?

12. If he revived wisdom and discretion in us
He also jested and winked playfully

13. How he hid his anxiety behind a smiling face
And released cares held prisoner inside

14. We are a people with no homeland
Save the heights of mountain tops and canyons

15. We seek only the flames of battle
The clashing of swords, armor and fortresses

16. The Prophet and the Trustee are of us
As is the Virgin and Hussein and Hasan

17. And our uncle Abbas whose uncleship
Made him a brilliant lamp of the age

18. To him submitted every feared lion
Kingdoms that do not submit to the resolute

19. They marched armies and squadrons as
The Yemenis trailed their robes in Yemen

20. They wore glory as the Lakhmid kings wore
Chivalry in the meadows of Shadan

21. And how much religious pride we have
That diminished all the zeal of Yemen

22. Ask us, if you know us not,
The white antelopes and fawns of the meadows

23. And every wild beast with growling cries
Complaining if it calls out with none to answer

24. Dusted with the drizzle, red earth
For the youth has no eye nor ear

25. We count as our finest on the day of battle
Those who thrust lances and stabbed with swords

26. And those who until the throng crashes fearfully
Then find safety when terror roams about

27. And those who when passions are aroused do not waver
Or stint when the abundant Nile floods

28. No indecency entered our verses
Nor did suspicions ever allude to them

29. No foolishness or wantonness in them
No vanity or baseness has been poured into them

30. Havens of poverty, gates of wealth
Safety in fear, honor in degradation

31. No malice for a filled belly among us
Nor were we ever troubled by what fills the gut

32. Say to those who reproached us before
Their honors were shredded from the disgrace

33. Where are the heads of the people from the bottoms of feet
In glory, and where is vigor from effeminacy?

34. How can you pelt us when you are veiled
Or how can you storm the antelope weaponless?

35. You made a truce with us once
Then turned a truce into perfumed smoke

36. If your staffs were shaped into crooks for us
Then we have no crooks among our staffs

37. You harbored hatred against us, but how much
Hatred has a man harbored against his own people?

38. And how often you turned away from us, while we did not turn
From you, except to undiluted bitterness

39. We never ceased to carry your burdens
Too heavy for the shoulders of camels to bear

40. Leave your externals to us, then make
Your ugliness, if you wish, what is within

41. What loss to one whose kindness his own brother envies
If he were to envy the wicked their vileness?

42. Were it not for my contempt for you, I would cure you
And not seek to fix you using the planks of ships

43. Fear not the Lord of unsheathed, slicing swords
But fear the Lord of eloquence and tongues

44. Man perishes while his words endure
Time passes over him, epoch upon epoch

45. Leave the pampered children of wealth their world
Who can shame this luxury without being shamed?

46. Comfort is only in shunning wealth
For possessions are care and sorrow for the insightful

47. Alike are time and its fellow vicissitudes
Fertility, barrenness, hardship, and ease

48. No hoarded wealth saves one fate has led
To its pastures, from its onslaught

49. Not spears, valor, antelope, or armor,
Horses, coats of mail or madness

50. And do not stay in a homeland where harm awaits you
For wherever harm awaits, that is home

51. A proud man’s home is only
The boundless sky or madness

52. Leave the moneyed elite their worldly lives
For who can shame luxury without being shamed?