1. Alas, O Islam, for the ravages of time,
Among the ruins at Dumat Al-Jandal.

2. Had I been struck down at Dumat, laid low,
Given to drink a healing draft by Sa’d,

3. How can the healer cure me of love’s pain
When the cure lies with the One-Eyed Son of Bayan,

4. Shall he who has a belly swollen with foul air
Place it over the belly of the ever-throbbing one?

5. The guards chide me away from her, and would that I
Had crept to her by night across the sands.

6. Why did you not chide the birds that night you came
Through the narrow space ‘twixt Suhail and Dabaran?

7. My heart refuses to forget, for all it eases me,
My trysts with Salim and Aban.

8. When I say, “I’ll forget,” another rope ensnares me
From the tents of Julfar over yonder.

9. My friend, ‘tis not wise to leave me in misery
Howling with the wolves and foxes.

10. After I had slept awhile, wakefulness pained me,
Anger stirred, to which the planets testify.

11. My guests in the barren waste quarrel, and both
Are known to me, the raven and ever-howling wolf.

12. When they come to share my provisions, I am not
Stingy, nor wasteful when they leave me.

13. When they snatch what the hand neglects, an Ethiop
Crafty of glance takes it away from them.

14. Now the wing keeps him at bay, and now he wheels
Between tent rope and tent peg.

15. When they approach and my soul shudders at them
I am seized by terror and fear of madness.

16. Seeing the land so narrow, in panic I mounted
Amare at an unsuitable hour.

17. A she-camel, huge, of lofty stature, as though
She were a daughter of ’Aqar or sister of Hijan,

18. When the palm strikes her with a whip she careens
Side to side, stamping, snorting.

19. With a manner haughty and proud, as though she were
A branch of ihān to the ladies and intimates.

20. Her urine, when it flows over the sands, is like
Her saliva dripping from the corners of her mouth.

21. My skin and her hide, when she gallops, seem as one,
Her smooth pace injuring my thighs.

22. Her rider drove her on through the wilderness until
She was emaciated, and Shaḥr and ’Ikān came.

23. No sooner was she inspired to head for fresh herbage
Than the gusts of Sufā whistled and died down.

24. So she bore for nine days misery like fate’s—
Stirring up the dust of the low hills with her hooves.

25. At times she cracks, at times she hobbles
As the drawer of water cracks the terracotta waterskin.

26. She makes the vales ring, shaking her head,
Her neck bloody, stained with gore.

27. Had it not been for Yazīd Son of the Imam, who brought down on me
The calamities his tongue summoned against me,

28. And had there not come to me in the scrolls only the threat “I warn you—
Had you wished, you could have sent me to my desire”

29. I would not have come willingly to receive my portion,
Nor prison, until deprivation had run its course—

30. Nights in which the female rock-partridge is no use to her chicks
With unfruitful Abhar, neither pebbles nor sand,

31. Diminishing the ration for the little ones, as though they were,
When they entered the shade, paupers;

32. As though the remains of departed camps were
Flakes of wood left overnight by tentmakers;

33. To every diminutive ruin as if there had adhered
Shells split open on the edges of orifices;

34. Word came to me that eight people, my family,
Had successively died in the family abode,

35. And that God had privileged his household
At the appointed time in the assembly and at the racecourse.

36. When they mounted the land traveling east,
At every place they left the Hamasi pebbles in chaos,

37. And when they had traversed the land ninety leagues,
The clouds poured with hailstones.

38. As though, when they performed their ablutions and emerged,
Two garments had been stripped from them by the rain;

39. As though the clothes of the Berber were being blown off him
By blustering winds, two woven textiles.

40. And when the two veered far from the path,
Neither found his way back to where he intended.