1. I suffer endless passion though I disguise my torment,
for the apparition of a beauty parsimonious with her gifts.

2. I swear my doubts that she has scaled the ridges
of the dunes or traversed the desert wastes on a night journey.

3. Was it an error that had clothed her in the garments
of intentional visiting or a plan to fulfill her promise?

4. She came easy through the night and the land of Najd shone bright
at her advent as copious rains irrigated Najd.

5. The regions are not doomed where her likenesses—
missives of longing from the beloved of Saʿdāʾ—alight.

6. She made us promises she did not keep with union,
but kept when she swore she would fulfill them.

7. Her specter brought her dwelling near so that
by the shaking hands of the covenant renewal was made.

8. When she drew close it meant tranquility for me, but
as she retreated, approaching thus increased my distance.

9. She asked me of youth as if she was unaware
that youth is a loan soon to be reclaimed.

10. No austerity of his indicated it, yet now was the time
for the borrower to restore what he had borrowed.

11. I hoarded tears only to weep the imminent
parting of one soon to depart, if he should depart.

12. On earth I have not settled in a land except
that I was the stranger there, the ransomed one.

13. When people felt no intimacy toward me,
I found distance from them and a resting place.

14. Who will help me against the son of the Euphrates
and reward me for my injuries and help given?

15. Poetry falls short of repaying the rending by
an Urayḥite when we vie with him in generosity.

16. Whenever I say: “Praise has freed my neck”
his hands return me to him as a slave.

17. If in him we meet disasters looming,
he opposes disasters most resolutely.

18. If the clouds attempted to attain his perfections
in full, we would say: “They have exceeded due bounds.”

19. Bounty whose trysts were swift until
he returned the delay of the Nile flood in ready cash.

20. The breadth of a generous man’s munificence
makes the gusts of storms seem niggardly.

21. Do not blame him for prioritizing if he preferred
to be stingy with his cypresses and domineering.

22. An resolve brought him to the rank of the trustworthy
star in thrilling glories and honor.

23. He is no weak, petty man who finds
sufficiency in two goat-hair tents and one more.

24. The nobility of folk, if you count their superiority,
is that their glorious deeds be beyond count.

25. How many a father does he have robed
in the mantles of grandeur or clad in mail!

26. ‘Irāq endowed him gifts that were no endowment
from ‘Umān or its rule for the Jalandah.