1. How long between the folds and rugged terrain
Have I been blamed, though it sounded not in my hearing?

2. Woe unto you! Had you been true, you'd not have said,
Woe unto you! Weep not with a tattooed face.

3. While fever was giving drink during the days of fever
For indeed it has passed and will not return.

4. Why do you not weep a tearful weeping
Among ruins and sands all around?

5. With tears among the eyelids, bent over,
And tears on the cheeks, poured down,

6. And sighs joined by sighs
Rising from the fire of an innards seared through,

7. You stood in this abode with an eye that sees not
The change of the seasons, nor an ear that hears,

8. And yearning not like my yearning,
And ribs not like my ribs in passion.

9. But only my lamentation weeps for me in longing,
And a pain that knows my pain.

10. If the ruins could speak, voiceless as they are,
My fervent plea gave them voice.

11. And a downpour that returned the leaves of the palms
Wailing in sorrow, weeping with me,

12. As though, without tears as they are,
The rain had lent them my flowing tears.

13. O dwelling spread by the hand of decay
Like the spreading of Yeman, never mended!

14. By God, tell me, are you their encampment,
Or are you a pasture for the browsing gazelles?

15. So it said: “Nay, I am their encampment, though
The suns of my east have borne it from me,

16. Veiling gazelles safe from the calamities of time,
Turning the eyes of temptation in the face screens.

17. Sword, arrows—their glances—and deadly blows!
Strange is their deadly enchantment.

18. As though smiling, if jesting with them,
Of coolness amid shining lightnings.”

19. Like the berries of a garden burnished
By a tread of suns in the dripping dew,

20. As though in their mouths a draft of coffee
Pure, with the water of their darkness lucid.

21. When the suckling of the goblet listens at dawn
To the whistling of the bird leading back.

22. Specialized for them in voice with despondent meaning
From the language of union and words of hope.

23. And drone succeeding drone
Passing with the mirage of the desert.

24. As though the projection of the firmament above it
When will cleverness ever cease regarding it?

25. As though its hoopoe were a returning
Melody of a lover with melodies heard.

26. It melts the deafness of rock, scorching hot,
In which expires the spirit of all wavering.

27. Every cave in it has water, and morning brightness,
In it the suns of every frog flash.

28. No fire is kindled in the darkness of its journey
Save the glittering of the flint-steel.

29. Its sides flow with honey if it passes by
Like the confusion of Sammah seeking diversion.

30. It overtakes gazelles galloping in travel with wings that
Cannot be lowered from them, the driven.

31. From them pound fugitives made breathless.
So with the scent in them they pasture.

32. And a smooth one traveled, her four footsteps
Walking delicately with the four winds.

33. As though having escaped to safety she
Had eluded being torn by sharp teeth.

34. She challenges with magic ever wakeful in the wrath
Of the crazed heavens, a piercing flame of mine.

35. And the meteors like meteors unleashed for a race
To a horizon where rises my rising light.

36. As though setting her cheeks down
For a slumber wherein she does not sleep.