1. Love him who hunts you down to entrap you,
And the prey offered up to the eager hunter.

2. Whence comes this allure that tugs my heartstrings,
So I must probe it, though it leaves no trace?

3. A haunting ghost whose pact is broken,
Save vestiges of tenderness distilled.

4. It draws you near a liver hot for you,
And stretches out a neck for you to clasp.

5. Disheveled, roaming ruins furtively,
Unkohl’d, unveiled, hips never to be girdled.

6. Her buttocks weigh her down, her waist collapsing,
She comes to you, all cleavage and all ribs.

7. You are not one whose guide would proffer
A delicate oryx, timid, night-bound, in darkness enfolded.

8. Dozing, his head aslant, as if, in the small hours
He were a hedgehog curled, or dormouse hunched.

9. And dawn unfolds its smoothness,
While night bundles itself in that fur coat.

10. Year after year it kept me waiting, but
When daybreak hurried it, it did not hasten.

11. It shed the stars’ array as necklaces,
Each circlet detailed, each pendant teardrop-shaped.

12. Who will startle the does after my mares have galloped by
Or rival me when the night is full as I desire?

13. Leave me the racetrack, for when the race is run
The thoroughbreds are put out to grass.

14. I have encountered fortune’s gifts and whips,
Molded like purest gold welded refined.

15. I do not cease when I aspire to climb,
Nor haggle when I seek glory.

16. I have grazed the horizons with my zeal,
And trodden the constellations with my toes.

17. He whose heart is my blade does not waver,
Or whose banner I am does not recoil.

18. O dweller on my heights, bow down before him,
Begone, O Falsehood, speak, O Truth, insist!

19. The greatest of the judges are bedazzled by him.
Had an owl gazed at him, it would not have blinked.

20. Sealed by his sword from their heinous gossip,
Girded in the integrity his speech demands.

21. You have attained celestial strings, so increase
Your bounty, or diminish it, as you desire.

22. God be praised for steeds from Kindah
You drive without the jostling of the common herd.

23. They smile at the battle so their mouths
Are like pearls placed next to their fellow pearls.

24. We have left the lion they claimed to exist:
So have you tested him in war or in skirmish?

25. He would not be enraged if you never carved
Victory for him, nor sought the hunter’s prize.

26. My hands would forget the sword if I did not rise up
To investigate his condition and examine it.

27. The essence of glory has composed itself in you
In subtler patterns than the creative mind can trace.

28. Had you been the sun under a cloud, you would not fade,
Or the moon in darkness, you would not diminish.

29. If my gratitude is a sin, forgive me,
Or if I have erred, examine my case.

30. The day slanderous tongues attack, my passion,
Undimmed by you, will come to my defense.

31. House of ‘Ali, I have not been ungrateful for hands
That rescued me in a debased and craven age.

32. I dwelt among you, so you repaired my brokenness
And joined what petty folk had rendered fragile.

33. None but you make the clouds rain down such bounty,
For you make sweet an existence free of bitterness.

34. What glory resides in your kingdom’s canopy!
And what loyalty we enjoy from you as patrons!

35. He despaired who was mired in distress and anguish,
Yet had he implored you, his thirst would have been quenched.

36. And when misfortune weary of its burdens
Turns to a tongue fluent in praise – then it prospers!

37. A creation composed of celestial bodies
That rose before Kuthayyir or al-Akhṭal.

38. Gleaming since ancient times in their Kindah origin
Beyond what was told of Aws ibn Hajar’s lineage.

39. Will it avail me to love you if Fate
Does not favor one who does not strive?

40. One said to Pleiades, “Pass by thus,”
And said to another constellation, “Wink out.”