1. O Ka'b, if only you had been content with
The beauty of regret and paucity of crime,

2. And hearing the cooing of a dove that makes excuses for us
Until it returns from the non-Arabs’ lands,

3. I would have awakened while Numayri thought it
Was the entire cosmos and aunt of the stars.

4. Cry out to Ka'b after what befell him
When tasks fell upon a stalwart wrist,

5. A body through which blood flows copiously
As fingers of grape-pickers drip.

6. Wine is not like my brother
But can betray one confident of forbearance.

7. It adorns foolish opinion when its breezes’
Prevalence grows.

8. I am a man of the family of Murra. If
I speak to you, do not recoil from my words,

9. From a family to which, if I meet them,
I am a protector of the truth, assailer of injustice.