1. Alas, you wept over our ruins and homes left in despair
Your heart broken by their departure, shattered

2. The mixed folk are fleeting, gone for good
When will we see them again returning?

3. I followed their trail, stealthily, with a watcher's eye
A glance, like a captive staring through the mesh

4. By God, joy and sorrow alike know
That parting from union is misery

5. If I chide my heart, its pounding grows
If I hold back my tears, they pour uncontrolled

6. If I hide my sorrow's secret, passion stirs
A breath to haunt my soul and speak its pain

7. Woe for the days of youth and their time
If only they had lingered a little longer

8. Ask the life of an age now past
Can it find its way back? Not a chance

9. If its ending were as its beginning
I would not recall it with rancor

10. Many a day of youth I shortened
Lost in trifles, heedless it was fleeting

11. A milky Sulafa, bleached daughter of Sulafa
Her squeezings give only pale whey

12. Two sisters, each the daughter of the other's sister
Both calling the purebred a sickly thing

13. Don't give me tainted water, bring her
A chaste beauty, smooth of skin

14. Tattered, parts trembling against parts
She took none but dilutents for lover

15. She was milked, and milked, milked her milkling
Till her milkling's milking came eased

16. She awoke in the soul's secret and there came to her
A soft voice, fluent on the tongue

17. Fine temper lent savor to her cup
Crowning it with a wreath made her garland

18. Killed outright, no chance to scream
There the publisher left her slain

19. An old rooster whose saddle I loaded
Its back, though a pulpit sought such a perch

20. Driving plump sheep and the cattle of Hanī
Who left their she-camels roaming at will

21. A hen who disclosed her shame to me
And a silent nesting pigeon, calm and docile

22. Until dawn kindled its fire and I stirred her
To taste sleep or get a little rest

23. Night hoisting the hem of its cloak about to withdraw
Its rule vanishing in departure

24. I shouldered sorrow's burden and so roused myself
And my comrade, the staunch night-farer

25. When the caravan trembled, the howdah swayed
Its swaying increased and accused the camel

26. With an eye flick she pelts camels and flock alike
With sparks, as if her glances overwhelmed them

27. If only a folk were created of the essence
Of their valor, the sons of Gabriel they'd be

28. A people when the rooster blazed in battle
Made skulls the mangers of their swords

29. For no sanctuary exists but spears
And amidst them horses, ridden by killer and killed

30. Indeed we met at the land of Kabul in a fray
That left the invaders open to attack