1. Saddle the steed and spur the swift horses,
Cross the desert, home after home.

2. Drive them relentlessly,
Racing birds in flight across the dunes.

3. When you glimpse, from the Wadi Taul valley,
Hashim's plain outstripping the birds in flight,

4. Stop and call out to Nuzaar, speaking frankly:
"Where, oh where do you see Nuzaar today?"

5. Let the elders of Fahr recite, saying:
"Why did they stay despite the injustice?"

6. Sit, while the spears deal out death
From their hands, and the gazelles ignite the fire.

7. With them are all the lovelorn drunkards,
The bright-faced whose passion grows intense,

8. The form of the slender Nahd doe,
Swimming, wafting the scent of death to the horses.

9. A wild cow shaking its forelock,
Which only stirs when startled by a maiden,

10. It is the brother of the night at dusk
And brother to the sun when dawn breaks.

11. Do not blame them, you whose eyes covet,
For they know not dishonor.

12. Above stallions with knotted manes,
Amidst galloping steeds and skilled horsemen.

13. Like clattering sand they shake out a robe -
Beware, beware the kin of sand!

14. Or beasts of prey swoop down ravenous,
Mistaking the heads for formidable lions.

15. Drunk with zeal they rush towards death,
Reveling, though they are not drunk.

16. They call out to the barren valley:
"O fertile valley!"

17. Death stood in their way at an instant
When its swords ended their lives.

18. Successors to the sword, though they
Race each other to host the guest.

19. Whether they attain the glory of battle,
Or plunge into the thick of fray,

20. They ready long, slim lances
For war, and short lifespans.

21. They follow a blow with a stab, continuously,
With cunning that fills the horizon with dust.

22. They will not avert their eyes from the slain, even if
The slain's belts are wrapped around their heads.

23. After it neither asylum nor attacking
The people of Harb will avail you.

24. How much blood of yours in times past
Did the eternal swords drink!

25. And a steed whose breaking you found no weakness,
Lowering its eyelids in defeat.

26. A free woman who wove no veil in the abode,
They removed the veil from her face.

27. She tears the cheeks with her fingernails and calls out
With a yearning to silence the love-torn.

28. She went about rending an exposed chest
Bared by the dawns' first light.

29. They cut her into bundles and bundles
Across the dunes and homes after homes.

30. Her ribs lie outstretched, the gaps
Of the desert cloven apart left and right.

31. How many barrens did they join to barrens,
Severing her ribs and spine!

32. Let the disease in the heart grow more severe
At a child whose wrist was circled by no bangle.

33. And a fledgling whose neck was ringed
By its blood pouring from its slain mother's womb.

34. One with an umbilical cord still tied around it
Whom death took before youth had greened.