1. O abode of Malik, within you there is no companion,
Except ruins whose lessons are clear,

2. Has time deceived you or has decay struck you?
After comfort there is gloom and dryness,

3. Our livelihood was never as plentiful with you,
As the days when your dwellings were populated and familiar,

4. So time has made you drink, O abode, a draft
In which thunder and lightning wildly rage,

5. An abode which comfort has deserted, so its dwellings
Are a people blown by the winds and withered,

6. Ruins which have erased the celestial signs upon them,
So it is as if their remaining traces are lessons,

7. Your eyes have not shed anything but blood,
And from it good fortune has departed, reversed,

8. In the house there is a mourner grieving for its people,
A lean hyena amidst the dust, miserable,

9. The beasts have become familiar with it, so in its dwellings,
There are only ostriches wandering and trespassing,

10. Dwellings which decay has settled in its corners,
And its features are obscured, so they are vague,

11. The echo calls out within it, and answering it
Is the ostriches' clamor, as though they are cherubs,

12. And perhaps the morning breeze has dragged its train for me,
In which there is a familiar friend and companion,

13. From every concealed and ruined enclosure,
With its ropes intertwined with our ropes, a covering,

14. Concealed in shyness, grimacing,
Wearing the garb of chastity, aloof from abominations,

15. And a young camel from its bounty, lost,
A virgin untouched by the hands of men, aloof,

16. Al-Nu'man did not pluck her virginity, nor
Did Al-Mundhir wet his drinking cup, nor Khusraw,

17. The Jews wrote on her anklets,
"O she-camel, you are imprisoned by time,"

18. A dhimmi who prayed while Magians bustled around her,
Drinking cups shining when the veil was lifted from her face,

19. Like a sun nourished by the sun, so she is a bride,
The wild does gathered around her as though they

20. Were, with their palms, planets and suns,
From every well-bred, high-humped she-camel,

21. Her father and mother were Khusraw and Bilqis,
She is left loose-reined when I begin, and a servant,

22. And when you incline towards her, she is a companion,
He hurries with a jug, as though its leather

23. Were dyed with its colour in saffron, soaked,
He gives you to drink the spittle of a lost young she-camel,

24. Which the priest deemed too pure for his eloquence,
Between Khawarnaq and Sadir, an abode

25. For dalliance, in it there is an obscured dwelling,
So the stream is redolent with its basil,

26. And the back is from its young gazelles, trodden,
Time was inauspicious to its people so they split,

27. Truly time is inauspicious to its people,
We lived in it in delight,

28. Days in which there was a sensitive living,
So time built upon it the structures of decay,

29. And over its dwellers there is gloom and frowning,
And a drunkard whose neck was bitten

30. By the serpents of wine-cups, vicious,
Reason has tied his tongue, and his legs have failed him,

31. So it is as though he is trampled and crushed,
Madness has empowered him, so he wanders as though

32. The spittle were streaming in his accursed cup,