1. Imagination came to us riding Yemeni mounts,
While the visits to Layla, if you count them, are many.

2. Among them are known verses from the Book, and Layla
Is accustomed to lying about what she wishes from us.

3. Layla was not delighted, nor did she confess her need
To anyone from the people of Rayman except out of need for us.

4. From the migration of the asses of Himyar are the camel mares,
How could that weakness between us be mended?

5. In the evening with livers of young camels roasted, so a company
With smooth saddles, or a company with rugged ones, rides to us.

6. O dwelling of Layla, I leave it empty that I not burden it
Except with affection so it may know the religion.

7. The bells of the summer resorts sing to her,
And from the bosoms of valleys gifts are brought to us.

8. Gray are the camels of morning, their saddles
Are covered for us with Ithmid during the evenings.

9. They cover it as a dwelling whose refinements
Were augmented with that which extended the life of the living for us.

10. I walked about it to greet it and ask it,
So it almost made me weep from ardor and made us both weep.

11. So I said to the people, “Go ahead, I have no need for you,
I see Layla's dwellings which do not greet us.”

12. With a trotting smooth gait blotting out the track of the riding camel,
Far from the worn-out roads it wore us down.

13. The winds changed it and we passed through it
From every direction the winds came to us.

14. They obscured the track of the riding camel until
They changed it or leveled it for us.

15. In the expanse the mirage made it
As if it were a bowl and the bowl of a guide for us.

16. As if the voices of the wild ring doves in it
Were singing for us from every cooing place.

17. Voices of wailing Nabataean women
Who have mastered lament and chosen dirges for us.

18. In a palace whose bricks and mortar
Were once presented to its masters as gifts to us.

19. The sound of bells in it, which the hands of priests do not neglect
While the throngs around it do not make us drowsy.

20. As if their voices, from wherever you hear them,
Are like the sound of cymbals convulsing the shrines for us.

21. I walked it by night until I left it
So its slopes at the end of night are seen desolate.

22. Until I discerned the dawn fire and dark came over us,
Bowing humbly during prayer or performing our ritual prayer.

23. And ardent yearning carried me away, a free-roaming camel
Rushing in the night madly.

24. It casts pebbles in the morning at the rocky ground, jumping
With a trotting, free-roaming, intermingled gait.

25. It casts them while it is like the timid hyrax
Casting pebbles between the tearings with us.

26. It used to always trot, gathering
To the camel’s shoulders pushing away the drivers from us.

27. And an elegant smooth neck whose chiseled parts
Are covered in the finest silky cloth as it twists around us.

28. I challenged it with persistent disobedience
From which supple bodies pour when they touch us.

29. I pulled my cloak off my hand seizing it
Individually dragging along the redeeming hands from us.

30. Then I went away briskly rejoicing with it
As if it were the estate of elephants hidden with us.

31. And a funeral in which mourning women's tears
Have not tasted life as virgins or helpers for us.

32. Pure and healing from every disease, by God's leave
They will heal us.

33. As if the eyes of young gazelles when lined
With black kohl, it suited them for a while with us.

34. As if they are the beloved oryx does, so tame,
Straying in Murrah's valley or staying in our valley.

35. They walk the waviness of sand dunes leaning sideways
Sometimes slipping, sometimes held back by the ground with us.

36. From the sands of ‘Irnah or from the sands of Asnumah
The curly ground in the rains lies buried with us.

37. They sway supple bodies for walking which
The south wind moves gently, slender branches with us.

38. Or like the swaying of an Indian sword handled
By merchant’s hands, so they increased its flexibility with us.

39. Whites disrobing for us from their mantles
To disrobe in white and sheathe what they stripped off with us.

40. When they speak, you see scattered pearls
And if they are silent, you see concealed pearls with us.

41. You take issue with their minds, and my heart
Stores from conversations until they double in gentleness for me.

42. On a night of the nights of fate worthy
Of eternity, if after the end of fate there was safety with us.

43. Deliver, O messenger, for I have heard
Some of the speech which will guide her to come to us.

44. Why do you run to us without a beard
When you may, if we run you down, help us?

45. You have fled far away, you sent it forth
While we shoot at you, so see how you throw at us!

46. So aim with your arm, and know that if you fight us
We are the people of war, we give it to drink as it gives us drink.

47. Poisonous are the mountain tops with smoothed rocks
And we subjugate the Mashrafiya with our hands.

48. We are quick to scatter if you incite our ignorance
On the day of battle, and it meets our blades.

49. We have the binder of the crown or one exalted over it
Whose nobility the people's leadership brought to us.

50. So he took war lightly against the Harran ever ready
Until he remained bound by the two hands with us.

51. And among us is Sabbah, if you contend against him,
A goodly army of eighty thousand with us.

52. And intimate she-camels, swift steeds, ripe,
From the family of ‘Auaj, mixed and compressed with us.

53. When they call out to each other their whinny rises up
To the essence of affairs, and they do not neigh with us weakly.

54. And footsoldiers who strike the white spot on the shoulders
With a blow the heroes swear allegiance to with us.

55. So do not be like the one planted in his belly
Between the two ranks until he remained paired with us.