1. The palms are desolate amid strongholds between the sands and the meadows,
The wild replaced by the familiar from times gone by,

2. After years aloft its arenas
You hear within prizes of money,

3. It guards its pack and protects them
A gaze like a vigilant doe, unsheathed,

4. And a swimmer, gathering, clawed by
Every unruly leader like a lion,

5. It has no prophecy, so it refused it
On a day of wagering, from it no acceptance or rejection,

6. O can you see the lightning in the darkness of its knuckles
In a growling thunder, its temples clenched,

7. It leaned on the dome of ruins gloriously
The pole glittering between the sands and the rocks,

8. It leaves them, the endings, scattered,
Like fresh, loosened headbands,

9. When a Yemeni wind passes it
It returns its banners to the textile,

10. If yesterday I stroked the soil, could
Death after me turn from anyone?

11. Every person has lost his loved ones
And a Muslim his face turned to the homeland,

12. I opened my shop spreading it
With luggage atop the brilliant camels

13. My eyes pierce the cups yet I do not
Get drunk from their scent and I do not flinch,

14. I avoid the era of scheming, and I
Slay the hunger of the wretched outcast

15. And I bring down the fearful stranger with it
I fold up the day with a slumbering wail

16. Barefoot, its vessels,
Clouds like frightened ewes, restless,

17. It did not contend with veils and its
Heat did not weary it, nor did it object