1. Leaving your lands with no regrets,
Visiting the people of Hulwan though distant they may be.

2. For your love calls me to your lands,
So close are our ties and bounties you have bestowed.

3. Thus the people of Karam cannot keep me away,
Not even if I deemed them paltry and mean.

4. If only I knew—but alas, I know not,
And all else pales, if only it could last.

5. Will the Banu Marwan relay, if their lands
Become too remote, that I pine and yearn?

6. A she-camel, ‘Eidiyya, I trained until
Her gait grew smooth and she turned perfectly docile.

7. I readied her for travel though unaccustomed,
Like a tower unshaken by the journey ahead.

8. The boy leads and she walks with swaying saddle,
Amidst onlookers, with a lover’s sauntering gait.

9. She quivers and shakes her braids as if
Smitten by ecstasy—such smoothness in her tread!

10. Until I cinched the saddle firm and she bolted
Swift as lightning’s gleam, a blur at full speed.

11. Her whip—a faint rap—and her hooves beat
The earth with the sound of melting metal rods.

12. As if a howling wolf pursued the caravan,
We follow her lead wherever the road takes us.

13. Playing with the flock, aloof from the riders
When they show fear or act with haste.

14. As if a torrent lay before her in the wasteland,
When her goats appeared and the clan marched on.

15. A torrent before a swimmer midst his tribe
Plunging in headfirst though the eddies raged.

16. A people whose birth was glory, attained hereby
From a people famed for the glory of their sires.