1. O May, won't some of your affection reward
A captive, or can't prisoners with you be ransomed?

2. This must not be our pact with you.
For purpose, after the abode's ruin, conforms.

3. You may see me desiring, as years take me,
And old age dresses me in its finery,

4. So girls who'd mock me now befriend me,
And I seem usual near the smooth-skinned beauties.

5. My heart may task me, so I restrain it,
Mornings their madness makes my quarters desolate.

6. I may say to a bull, “Do you see a loved one
My guardian hurries to him worried, fearful?”

7. As if they are ships driven on by the winnower
Or a pliant litter of smooth Meccan howdahs.

8. The clan raises them up for the next, but a
Keen edge and edge below them catch up.

9. Till we met them, the day had faded, and
For them lightning flickered at the clouds' hem,

10. With eyes whose blackness blue had never tinged
They shoot us from every vantage unseen.

11. They sap the strength for fight of the aged
And the refined libertine is their obedient.

12. I have raised over their proud litters for them
Lads who are no weaklings. The curtain waves

13. As if it were a bird afoot in their turbans,
My soul ransom for Father of War mornings

14. When he consorted with jinn or was lonely, forlorn.
Bearing a list that lets fly the she-camel's scorn

15. At the coward's urging when necks were called.
So his war-mares lay in the sun all morning

16. As if choking back tears. The feet
Pursuing the fore, the hand, when you see them go,

17. As if, after the straps' binding, he had shaped them
From the wild cows of Ghazzah, branding their flanks.

18. He slept by her side. The long night, the heart
Full of fear, kept him awake.

19. Lightning flashed about him all night
And a drizzle from the cloud's rain kept falling.

20. The drops were scattered pearls. When
His robe clung to him, they shook down.

21. He took refuge from her in a irrigation ditch
While branches dripped above the margin's gravel.

22. Till daybreak's light was about to shame him
And the night's darkness abandon him,

23. Some gaunt hags charged him, their girths
Like split gall bladders. He plunged on

24. While the dogs gave chase, almost upon him.
Death retreated before him. He gained on it, reached it.

25. When they caught up with him, he wheeled his club
And their veins flowed from his piercing stab.

26. A man of war warded off his essence
When they both dodged the club's swing.

27. Some he struck down before him were left
Prostrate, and some, when his swing came, fled.

28. The day we met you we shot poisoned arrows.
Our coats of mail were almost set on fire

29. As the pleats of their eyes poured down their cheeks
When the milky way jostled them.

30. In a cloudburst they soared up, floating briefly
Before it ripped apart. Gaunt flesh

31. Makes them lead the race when their kin perspire.
As if, from keeping so long their spite smothered,

32. Their ribs were full of echoing, rustling spite.
They rise above the waste once the mirage fails them

33. Like hungry hyenas, their long necks emaciated.
To a man who lacks fellows or kinsmen in need

34. When the pasturage is dry and grazing's bound short,
Whose spirit's hardened, who wastes no words when

35. He shakes the spear, no coward who lags behind,
You, O son of Ziyad are virtuous to us.

36. Distress comes from you, yet you are the kindly adviser,
Though undertaking matters beyond your might

37. With a rabble lacking thunder and lightning.
You are the best born of your aunt, one whose intercession is sought

38. When above the mighty army the banners shake.
Lord of an abased house, his qualities are praised

39. By the litter-bearers, neither heavy nor troublesome.