1. Strangers excel in their homelands,
While kin shun and keep away from them.

2. They never savored rest in the wine-skin's curve,
Nor did they own gowns threadbare from constant wear.

3. The ignominy of living for a man
Is that he lives off the barest means while still craving more.

4. When the fires of my youth begin to wane, it saddens me,
Even were a refuge built for me amongst the stars.

5. O she-camel of the valley, whom you granted me,
Though I call out to you, any echo I hear is faint.

6. What's after fifteen or forty springs of youth?
You're not pleased with a cloak for clothes,

7. Though if what's underneath was seen, they'd call it a cloak.
In this stagnant land are blooms

8. Among which some shine while others are insipid.
The line of progeny extends from Adam

9. to me, though it never connected with "Ba" of my name.
Whenever Amr yawns, Khalid yawns contagiously,

10. but it doesn't infect me with drowsiness.
My knowledge of people disheartened me about people,

11. Since I know that both worlds are vain.
How does one recover what is lost after

12. the raging fires have consumed the fathers?
When fate descends, cats cannot pounce

13. Nor sedatives arouse.
Spearheads lunged into the army, but Raddwa was not pierced,

14. And standards of the Khamis regiment stood tall.
A father reaps even if his sons

15. are governors over the lands and fine orators.
Your distance from your sons increases,

16. as does their resentment since they're highborn.
They see a father who left them in a shrine

17. when its prayer beads scattered all over.
Only the cultured disciplined each people in every land

18. and guided them away from villainy.
In every mound and burrow we're pursued

19. by death and its executors of matching kind.
When lionesses fear rabbits,

20. how can their cubs rule over gazelles?