1. Let the eyes shed tears in the homes, yet I see no solace
That would heal them, nor does ignorance leave them be

2. Nor can the heart, even if they both blame it,
Stay awake, nor can my eyes in their weeping be stingy

3. They flowed a short time, nor for long did they spill
With beads of water fit for grandeur do they pour

4. I remembered my brothers whom I abandoned
As if my image to them hadn’t once been an image

5. Not out of hatred did I abandon them, nor rancor
But time passed by and it kept them busy

6. While we hope to meet with honor
Unlike anytime before we had met them with justice

7. Noble, generous folk whose path I roamed
With a white, braided, plaited camel

8. The return of journeys, fast were their she-camels
That if she were to wear out her sandal, we’d find her a sandal

9. Whenever they come from an edge, they meet a chief
A clear lad with him the secret or an old man

10. They lead a regiment that looks as though it were
Phantoms of shade that left them no mirage

11. For them are spears, a line their height makes seem
As if the family of an hour had picked them as palm trees

12. In a Hijazi valley lengthened, its plantations on its banks
Were tilled, they did not leave them fallow

13. Theirs is a noble ancestry, tall are their lances
They travel, no bend or swerve

14. And a sanctuary their fathers roamed, we tend its mothers
Veiled-ones we give them and hobble them

15. And slaughter them two by two when the wind grew violent
And the tribe’s homes became a temporary abode

16. And we paste the hides by the heap when she brays
Her fetus not yet ripened into a burden for her

17. And white camels that seem as though their cheeks
Were the cheeks of a loved one, cured of mange

18. Heavy of step, loud of jewelry, they did not stand
On quicksand, filling the hollows and mud

19. They pride themselves on crafting by guilds and silver
Worn over reed mantles as garments

20. I toyed with them while time dons its mask over us
And no conqueror has cut for us a rope