1. The groves - did the wind shake them,
Or the footfall of a visitor its ashes press?

2. Like lines of tattoo on skin it patterned it
When dawn breathed life, and I could smell its scent.

3. After I left, floods played with it
And seeped into its bowels, tearing its hem.

4. They left it the plaything of their swell
For a passing spring, wrapping it about.

5. The sand-heap took on a floral coat
Whose summit my reaching fingers grazed.

6. A pictured trace I stood before, whose rule
I’d not have broken, had I heeded myself.

7. I saw there only ostrich, necks held high
Like hand-maidens whose wristlets glinted bright.

8. You remember when we did battle,
Useless he who mourns what is past mending.

9. You are date-palms, gracious boles,
Which, when felled, even stumps do ornament.

10. While your virgins, clasped
In the crook of palms, like embers burn.

11. For you, cowardice and valour as one –
Its fires stoked by your serving-boys.

12. Better than all trees you pastured
Were the withered or truffle-ridden tamarisk.

13. So the trickster bustled between us
With the bustling of a lying knave made shy.

14. He took the riffraff as his share
And it was as though their minds left them.

15. As for them, their bellies gorged
And their quilted coats made them squat.

16. For a time we left them so;
Then He who judges parted us.

17.
If you begin again, for you

18. We have in store abusive verse and more –
And a slaying that will not quit you,

19. On a day of marshalling places seething.
Pour forth your antecessor Walhab and Wahal!

20. Lords of repute, imposing and unwise!
Who leave the plain beneath them

21. Like a lamp shining bright in the dark of night.

22. You see only a rider’s brother
Taking the lead, while the rest conform.

23.
For the skittish have no heart for fight