1. Are you the one who enlivens the abode, or are you its questioner
Where its rivers have dried in the sands?

2. And how can you enliven the abode when its people are gone
So that only its foundations and pillars remain?

3. The chiefs of fate have abandoned it and the summer winds
Have covered it with drifting dust.

4. And I have said, out of deep sorrow when I saw it,
As my tears poured forth unrestrained:

5. Alas, O people whose abode is now a wilderness!
And how can one find rest when old age befalls him?

6. The abode has lines of poetry on both sides, as if
They were a book inscribed by fingers.

7. My heart has forgotten the people of the abode, though it pains me
When I recall their gatherings and their nights.

8. The people of 'abarāt were led to Syria,
Neither despair consoles them, nor grief kills them.

9. They have ceased drinking from the pitcher of companionship
After the enemy returned and fought them.

10. The does lead it along as if it were
The harvest of May overflowing at night to the shore.

11. The situation has changed, after situation, and life
After our life - the abode's constriction is unbearable!

12. A wolf howling amidst its plains, the stallion of ostriches
Its mane flowing, its forelock and tail.

13. How many good lives have I known in the tight space of the abode
When we lodged there with those we visited!

14. When fate's blameworthy traits are cultivated,
The fruits of passion grow from it, though its disasters are feared.

15. And of a blessed, licit assembly we saw, and a session
Where spears were hurled amidst the thickets of wild pear.

16. They follow the truth from its source
With their visions, until its joints are grasped.

17. They wield well-forged Indian swords which gleam
With what is most sincere in their eyes.

18. Rescuers of captives after their chains
Have bitten the wrists of the captive.

19. How many an encampment we saw with a battalion
Where we were pierced with grief or envied the noble!

20. And how many a shirt have we ripped
With fine Yemeni linen when its wearer shook it!

21. We spur on the matter when the awful predicament nears,
We help what is good and forbid what is disapproved

22. Until its final consequences come to pass.
Do you not see that money breeds loss

23. And that the rightful claim of fate and falsehood befall it?
So bring together and reconcile - money is but a loan,

24. All of it belongs to time, which consumes it.
The easiest loss and slightest ruin

25. Is that of the living man who cannot reach the living waters.
Cast out and driven from places to places,

26. Its gifts have trickled away and its traces are few.
Ruins upon ruins - nothing above and

27. Nothing below their like or their remnants.
I shot it with an arrow - its head quivers

28. When its tatters wander in the sea of mirage.
When the cranes, the fifth of birds, and sandgrouse

29. Gather together in a barren land, their inclination follows the wind.
The sandgrouse pillowed its cheek on the wings of the crane

30. And in the remedies of the people there is no strength in their chains.
I came upon a rain whose showers in its clouds

31. Were like the breast of a doe bursting with yield when shook.
It has a sturdy enclosure of two leather bags, robust,

32. The work of a firmly-tied waterskin whose openings have not weakened.
I rode it one morning as it lowered its head,

33. Fighting me persistently again and again as I fought it.
When I saw the wild beast I hesitated and drew back

34. With a gap-toothed camel whose girth had loosened.
I gave its cheekpiece rein and it impelled me,

35. While I and the boy who led it rivaled its height.
As if its hands were the hands of a coatless hero

36. Whose robe's edging trailed.
I did not let up until it extended my elbow

37. And I said: when will the unwilling hand reach its goal?
I pressed against it until I bent back its cheekpiece

38. Onto the smooth back of its shoulderblades.
I then held it fast after effort, though the ground

39. Beneath the wild beast disappeared into the unknown.
When I embraced its breast it inclined sideways with me

40. Until the west, and I said: am I its equal?
It cast me into water so deep that the skirt of my garment

41. Rose to the upper hollow of my leg and its folds flew.
So I leaned down like a plunging Qatami she-goat

42. Chased by fate, its twists and turns following the wind.
Upon the heels of an elegant enticer whose destiny

43. Is to arouse the molars' intense desire for its doer.
A breaker of shields, so that when you are behind it

44. Its throat appears from behind, along with its shoulders.
When the caravan's pace quickened in the soft sand,

45. Its pace in the soft sand cast down its rain.
When we came together in the dust I restrained it

46. As far as my spear would go, its forearm bleeding.
And one well-trained in listening approached heedfully,

47. As the wolf draws near the stray - it fights with him.
So I protected myself by dismounting alertly,

48. Like an oryx startled in heart by the thing that startled it.
I hesitated, distracted, as it went its way,

49. Then turned impetuously as its shoulders slipped down.
It butted me with its hands like a crazed camel, helpless

50. In what it was doing, striking me time and again.
When its palms met my eyes with its eyelids

51. It was like the clapping of a craftsman meeting his counterpart.
I imagined their meeting with its eyelids to be

52. The falling of the Gemini, missing their celestial path.
You see the green sheep ticks beneath its drool

53. Scattered, in pairs - its burning weakened them.
A prey animal, swooping down upon it as if it were

54. A snare of thread set by fate for the ones it destroys.
How many a herd have I robbed when it harbored

55. The wild beasts in its impregnable fortresses!
It made for its young - its head shakes