1. Yes, these are the ruins of Sulma, so bid them peace,
And let the torrents of events and epochs flow through them.

2. Stop at its resting places and rub on your bright-faced page,
Before regret, with their dust.

3. There lies the abode of passion, nay rather its halting-place,
And there lies the longing of the enamored soul.

4. And the train of gowns of the young gazelles of Jurah
Gave me to drink the early wine of union without anything distasteful.

5. The freshness of a life I imagined would last
But the matter was other than the imagining.

6. When will the people of Tahj remember in my ribs
Fires of passion like blazing embers?

7. I say to my companions while the saddle-beasts jostle us,
"Take at random the arrows that Fate shoots."

8. Won't one of you turn aside to the meadow, perhaps
To cure what is in me or accomplish my release?

9. So they hurried away, and tears covered my eyes' sight,
And I could not make out anything definite from the ruined encampment,

10. I passionately pour out tears whenever I pass by an abode
At Mayya except I mix blood with those tears.

11. I cannot discern in the flashing lightning as its light ripples
Robes let down belonging to a winged darkness.

12. Except I spend the night wrapped in the twisting of my anguish
As if my mattress were studded with its arrows.

13. We were wakeful while they slept, we folded our tents while they pitched theirs;
A weary task for the love-sick, the accusations of a blamer!

14. Yes indeed, when I beguiled coquetry with grief
And deluded it with the assumption of one resigned...

15. It appeared to a passion-maddened lover to return him
To the oppression of love in his running ulcer...

16. And she hinted to me with a blinking of her eye,
And shook her whole body like a waving branch,

17. So my soul would beguile itself in utter earnest
And I came back passionately enamored by what I had seen.

18. And she said to me while the camels were kneeling down,
With their tears flowing from sad eyes:

19. To what will you expose me to danger with them
While seeking wealth has means other than plundering?

20. So I said to her, "Wait, for an enamored one
Is plunging towards a Kaaba to which every wretched one inclines,

21. And which excellent noble people of good birth visit
Among them the son of `Ukkaaz and among them son of Dhiigham.

22. Pilgrimage rites have been performed whose rules
Are prescribed except that he who travels there is not a sanctified pilgrim.

23. The pillar of religion and merit, al-Qaasim, erected it
And gave his sons authority over it—say and magnify!

24. They are the people—not he who offends them—of safety
And their neighbors are safe from disasters.

25. When they encamp on arid ground it becomes verdant
And if they halt on the shore of Qanaa it is rebuilt.

26. Their hands do not refrain from wealth at the appointed time
And they dream of one whose offense is but to talk.

27. Forward your riding beasts, you seekers of glory,
For the torrents of glory have left the purified behind."

28. I spur him on to free speech though light
Shines on it without any branding.

29. He attained heights and sublimity while others attained only weariness
And remoteness from seeking the heights if one frets!

30. A young man who, when goals seem distant wins them
With the sword's sharpness and the well-fashioned spear.

31. And with the resolve of one who races towards every goal
And the boldness of a brave man against every greatly venerated thing.

32. By my life, he belongs both to an ancient lineage of Qais and Hajib
And to the line of the magistrate al-Fayaad, al-Qaasim.

33. To a lineage which was intrinsically good in original disposition,
Whose perfume wafted among Arab and non-Arab.

34. To him the safe-guarded glories inclined
With yearning like that of an impassioned lover towards her intimate.

35. And an inherited longing to acquire fame and glory
As its praise-worthy traits among mankind.

36. When his visitors and guests gather
He appears like the full moon among the stars.

37. They fill both his corridors heterogeneous tribes
Of eloquent and less eloquent.

38. Including those giving thanks and those petitioning seriously
And those seeking relief from the stumbling of the remorseful.

39. O Father of Excellence, neither Zaid nor Haatim nor Ma`n
Surpassed you when measured against other than the best!

40. If they did broadcast the mint-water of high direction,
You established landmark after landmark in it.

41. I departed from you neither happily preferring others
Nor discontent in your protection finding fault.

42. I was in my way and wont none but you
Like one peddling a gold dinar for illegitimate silver coin.

43. An old love you planted brought me to you
And you augmented it by irrigating the channel of your bounty.

44. We migrated to you, all those harbored by the neighboring dwellings,
Secured in journeying between Judayl and Shadaqam.

45. Whenever its lodges put on their high-born women
And it was spread out through them like a figured cloak...

46. It would sway slowly like the partridge leading its chicks:
It turns over, blown by the winds and the clouding air.

47. It came as gifts came until when night donned its darkness
And it feared the overwhelming of the smiling latecomer.

48. It breathed easily as if delivered
And subsided as if its snare were stern destroyer.

49. I folded its ropes wrongfully
Stopping its placid course and that of the trained she-goat.

50. In order to gain nearness to you since my whole purpose
Was to meet you and give thanks without delay.

51. Praise spreading like the meadow whose expanse
The dew pervades and which the gentle morning zephyr breathes into.

52. And pray God whatever my inclination bids me bind
Or repeat beautifully modulated in song,

53. For the Guided One, Trustworthy and Trusted and his House
And Companions and Successors—and greet!