1. A quarter with two hills at Tulaybah is my abode
Where ewes once grazed, now haunted by specters.

2. I stood there until dawn rose to the zenith
Mournfully, while hosts of owls took wing.

3. The abode reveals nothing to one who asks after it,
Nor do I, made senseless by the hopeless night.

4. With no ally to bring me aid
Save the ruined camps where assemblies once convened.

5. Doves flit over leaves, long-necked ostriches
And foxes course to and fro.

6. Porcupines burrow in the trunks of acacias
With busy claws that rend and tear.

7. These were watering places while bustards lingered,
And throngs of men walked as though in a mirage.

8. Wildebeests wander the wastes,
Their faces to the sun when it rises as they slumber.

9. A grizzled mule, one grandsire Babylonian,
The other Berber, the tick birds all over him.

10. He grazes the sky, wherever a cloud passes,
Stirring tenderness and daydreams in the heart.

11. If I leave him, still his eye follows me
Wary, watching for a hostile figure who might ambush.

12. He reminds me of Tulaybah when first revealed
With wild creatures lurking in the shade.

13. Echoing the roars of lions unleashed
To savage his burdened back through the night.

14. As if pure musk were spilled from an unguent vase
Mixing into the polished ice of a frigid stream.

15. Babylonian urns pour upon him as night dons
Its mantle, but modesty stood between us.

16. So behold me wearing the raiment of my final days,
The cloak of youth gone threadbare, and ask me of my trade,

17. For I have grappled with adversity an age
Until they piled into daunting peaks and summits.

18. If I overcome a hardship, vanquishing it one day,
Then for the next grim trial I ready myself.

19. I sent them far and wide and so they met their doom,
A dire fate that none who pierce me will elude.