1. With a slender graceful neck that humbles
The needy foot-traveler with light provisions

2. I crept to her nearest abode as nightfall
In his gown approached the orchard’s hedge

3. I spent the night at arm’s length, all hunched up
As the vine twists and turns in trembling coils

4. My gear was just two sandals, worn at the breast
Unpaired, with straps that could not be crossed

5. A tattered shawl, a gown and a patched cloak
That if it slips from one side cannot be hitched

6. A white one rust-stained as smith’s water
Clasping the wrists, it could easily be plucked

7. A red one, from a spring rain one morn
Creaking like a lattice, screaming aloud

8. When the climax comes it refuses ineptly
Casting its tatters amidst giggling and laughing

9. As if the rustle of arrows over its back
Were bees gone astray, failing to find their hive

10. The Mother of Qais the braceleted came
Fearing the spy may meet and turn informer

11. If you but knew that drink of dreadful danger
Is like a malady of the gut, or worse

12. I came back with some borrowed Meccan wares
Picked and chosen from all I can sieve and sort

13. Onto each striped red camel I tie them
And weave for boys garb of the finest cut

14. I rode the camels until I left them
Creaking when I bled them, blowing and snorting

15. With a handful as bribe for the hated guard
When I sell brine whose owner is infamous

16. A valley far, narrow, desolate,
Where Jinn and lions have their dwelling place

17. Beasts of prey roam, led astray by wolves’ howling
Where Jinn and lions have their dwelling place

18. I took from it arbitrarily, after the dew fell
Waterskins that even the arbitrary fear to pierce

19. When the coward shrinks from the path of virtue
My course is where even the piercing may dread to pass

20. A man has envied Sa’d son of Malik
Against me, though robed in the Caesar’s own attire