1. Does the owner of the tender cheeks know my state,
So she may allow me to glimpse her radiance?

2. Does she know how little endurance I have
On an evening when she has adorned for farewell?

3. I left those abodes though I was
Neither weary of the people nor detached from its folk.

4. Saad, my friend, chided me for weeping
Yet what was Saad's concern that day or mine?

5. The Yemeni lightning reminds me of Zainab,
So I imagine it is from her smiling mouth.

6. They pitched their tents in the quarter where Zainab dwells
Yet if their hands do not find rest, what of it?

7. My Uqaili woman calls on Hilal ibn ‘Amir.
Alas for my weariness with ‘Amir and Hilal!

8. An abode in Wadi Tilah whose people are lost.
By my life, from Tilah it is only decline!

9. He wondered at me when I passed through its outskirts.
He was silent, but when I wept he wept for me, saying:

10. “Thus it is, your tears flow without cease
Whenever you see the houses and they are empty.”

11. The youths have never known my passion for Zainab
Nor strayed like my straying in time past.

12. Nor have the noble poets threaded my course in verse
Nor roamed my domains in it.

13. If the misers deny me their company,
How often have I guarded my face from them and asking!

14. Why should I not befriend Taghlib ibnat Wa’il
Whenever I wish for fresh pasture and shade?

15. From the glory of Abdullah is my glory, if time grows long,
And from the wealth of Ibn Ahmad, my wealth.