1. Oh people prone to separation and estrangement
And long nights, how they wear down a lifetime!

2. Ibn Saffar has inclined toward you, so verily I
Am patient with harshness and glance like a spark.

3. Our lives left you no snake
That stirs on land, wind-swept, or sea,

4. If you leave Qays, O caller to battle,
Qays' quarters have retreated in disarray.

5. If they arise, not as one they arise,
If seated, hunched over hearts in gloom.

6. May God obliterate Qays when her men
Fled the black banner and unbroken she-camel.

7. Their women kept calling, those with bulging udders,
Tall, straight-necked, tipping back the wine.

8. If once the guided camels were led
By Umayr, now a desolate wasteland.

9. The beasts of the valley crouch around him
Though they never interred him in a grave.

10. Slain by keen polished swords and stabbing blades
That plunge through chests to draw forth blood.

11. Except the Sheikh al-Kilabi in his moment
When the catapult felled him from the manor.

12. A burden the battalions lost around him
Till he lay severed of arms and throat.

13. O clan of Amir you avenged not your brother
But were content with milk and raisins.

14. If she-camels were rounded up among the homes
You milked them greedily, pure and fresh.

15. When the Merciful saw they had no
Sage or admonisher to deter betrayal,

16. He set on them the Taghlib of Wail
Who were to them like shearing of first wool.

17. So go to the people of Hejaz, we hereby
Banish you from the land of wheat and dates.

18. As for us, we taxed Amir when gathered
With stabs of the jagged, stained spear.