1. From drawings long neglected and lost to mind
Your tears flow copiously, continuously.

2. The winds spread out their trailing gowns
While a year, ever generous, pours down in floods.

3. In it I linger as if I were sipping
Ambers of the vintage of ancient Babylon.

4. Not so the tears of an old man in a tavern -
High overhead the all enveloping dawn.

5. I sought the support of those who are her people,
Yet when they left I hopefully waited in vain.

6. At times Sulaima would stay in her abode
Like a tent‐peg that is loosened and sways.

7. Had it not been for the consoling charms of a beauty,
A fawn whose anklets sound soft and faint,

8. I would be like a camel gone astray on a road
Whose pasture is sensed by one of reason and care.

9. O questioner about our glory, you are
Indeed ignorant of what you ask about.

10. If our days have not come to you,
Then ask, inquire, O questioner.

11. Ask the rocky plane of Hujr and its sands
On the day his horde turned in flight,

12. The day Sa’d came down on Maqat
And shoulders from behind bore the struggle’s weight.

13. There we made them a flock of hen‐ostriches
As if they were tongues of a raging fire.

14. And O Amir, how we towered over them
When we met the heavily armed, plunging warriors.

15. And the horde of Ghassan we met them
With a piercing army with trailing robes.

16. Rise, O tribe of Dudan, people of chivalry
On a day when cavalry meets in the battlefield.

17. Among them were many a gracious lord,
A man of sweet breath, effective of deed,

18. One whose word is a word in truth
And whose deed is a deed indeed,

19. One who attains what he aims to attain.
Such a speaker of words which sprout because of them,

20. The land that lies fallow and waste.
He who comes questioning is not deprived,

21. Nor does he frustrate one who petitions him.
And one who lunges in the fray,