1. O dwellings of the living greened with meadows, I bid you peace,
Though days and time have no peace for anyone.

2. The ages alternate, now effacing it with a torrent,
Now restoring it at daybreak after the darkest night.

3. You house a people happy in their fortune
Whose eyes, if it lasted, would delight you.

4. Yet I have never known an evil man but evil
In the end recoiled on him and he regretted it.

5. Had I cared nothing for my tribe and made
No covenant sacred or inviolable,

6. Then strangers would have turned from me and those
Of my tribe blamed me, accusing me face to face.

7. A man of feeling cannot reproach me harshly
If I transgress, for the promptings of my heart he understands.

8. So I said: You cannot change what is past
Or foresee what the future holds in store for me.

9. Then as I bade farewell to vain pursuits
A champion of the faith reproached me like a brother.

10. No Indian scimitar honed to a fine polish
Could sever at one blow the stubborn head.

11. With the truest of my friends I put myself to the test
And we made trial of each other in the clash of arms,

12. On a day of unknown issues when the torrent scoured
The approaches where the summer camp had been.

13. You would think the cooking-hearths scattered nearby
Were doves huddled by the fire, terrified.

14. The tent-pegs of the dwellings were as though
They were game-pieces overturned by the changing seasons.

15. And many a man of mighty power and massy form
When his last hour came sank like a towering palm,

16. How often did passions distract me and draw me on
To the fleshpots where the singing girls throng!

17. The brother of one who spurns diversion and takes no thought
For travel or return to the camps of the living -

18. When I have taken my stance by his flank in the crush
Bright blades are plied by the honorable and noble.

19. With an advance-guard and a rear-guard they resemble
Interlocking circles - circle interlocked with circle.

20. The Bani Sa'd came to Babrain; amongst them
Were the tall lances and the close-knit coats of mail,

21. While the Bani Qais b. 'Ilân camped there below them
And the Bani Bakr passed the night there like foreigners.

22. A time that recalled to me Hammâm and reminded me of him
As the litter bore me along like the swaying of howdahs.

23. With a line of white not lacking a standard-bearer
For every ten, their flags like the wing-feathers of eagles.

24. He was offered the choice between war and peace and chose
War, though one might see women there, soft and delicate,

25. Whose throats, if the cavalry made a surprise attack one day
Would be collared by the breastplates cut to fit them.

26. For you, O Hammam, a venerable father inherited
Sons who have built for you a house you demolished.

27. Say to the Bani Marwân: Do not let it be
Like a late riser who wakes to find the day departed.

28. So my tribe awoke to find amongst them
The horsemen who protect the camels and the eloquent orator.

29. Of the dynasties that upheld the ordinances
What remnants are there when the columns are overthrown?

30. Do you not see that the mansions wear away
While the structures of verse remain resistant and firm?