1. A vision of Qutaila haunted me after she passed,
Though her tent rope was of our rope, so they intertwined.

2. I spent the night as if I were drinking, after dozing,
A red hangover thought to be pure when poured.

3. When it is decanted from its vat, its odor emerges,
Having been brought out from the darkness of the bowels.

4. It has a guard who does not leave its home through time;
When slaughtered he prays over it and glorifies it.

5. In Babylon it was not pressed, so it came choice
Mingling with cloves and sealed musk.

6. A cupbearer circles us, one of persistent ill omen,
Light, gliding, his hands ever bloodstained.

7. With a goblet and ewer as if its drink,
When poured in the bowl, mingled with ruins.

8. We have two parlors by it and bougainvillea
And lilies and marjoram murmuring.

9. Myrtle, and Syrian pear, and bittersweet,
When spring has come and aromatic herbs exhale.

10. Yellow jasmine and lily and narcissus
Give us good morning in every darkened valley.

11. The pipe of the lutes and flutes and the tambourine
Answering the cymbals when they resonate.

12. And honest lads, no rancor among them,
Who have made me their paragon, honored.

13. Leave this be! But how many a bewildered land
Have I traversed with my zebra when night darkened,

14. With a she-camel like a stallion, bold in it,
When the praying rider paused and donned his headcloth.

15. You see her little eye on the side of her forehead
Watching in my hands the forbidden herd

16. As if my saddlebags, the boys, and belongings
Were on the back of a shaggy-necked unruly camel.

17. Over it a striped cloth beneath which
Rested a rug of Askar mingled with darkness.

18. So he passed the night gentle to the heavens as if
Accommodating a group of the solitary dejected.

19. Taking refuge in the arms of a windswept dune
Enveloping him, the draft of a north wind leaving the face darker.

20. Leaning on his side he dug its veins
On the back of the naked road, confused.

21. So when dawn lit up he rose hastily
And the moment came to unleash the flock from where it camped.

22. The dogs of the young man, ‘Awf ibn al-Aram, met it
At daybreak and released it from his enclosure.

23. They hounded it from morn till the night overtook it
And it endured patiently the afternoon, so it persevered.

24. And I inclined toward the ill-omened one my hands, so I repelled it
With more ardent than the branch of the tree of sadness.

25. And I inclined toward it when he shook in the chest his throat
As the one with the lute excites the singing girls.

26. So the panels of its chest shook with the throat of his zebra
As the one with the lute excites the aligned girls.

27. And he wheeled about like a wounded ostrich, fleeing and wary,
Shielding from the heat of Sirima, respected.

28. That was after the struggle when I compared my she-camel,
If the sheep one day in the meadow brays,

29. Despairing that my Lord has denied it
The days of time, but honor and nobility.

30. God made it grow above every tribe,
A father, then a father who disdains baseness wherever.

31. And it never retreats one day to oppress and its face darkens
To ride disability or contend with sin.

32. If the honor of mankind were on the top of a craggy
Jagged rock perceiving the one who limps,

33. The Lord of men would give you the key to its gate,
And if there were no gate, He would give you a ladder.

34. So the Nile of Egypt when its torrents rise,
And the sea of Baniqya when it flows abundantly,

35. With more generous than it, obtaining. Some of them,
When asked a kindness, turn away and frown.

36. He is the giver of the perfections of character to his neighbor
Likened always to a constant downpour or heavily laden palms.

37. And every full pool is limited in its extent
And every torrent like the plowshare, blackish.

38. And every source of honor like the channel of a torrent
And the most generous hand of the servant, debased.

39. And every high-mettled one like the Phoenician parcel
Dragging to the shop a sack, marked.

40. And he left no desperate man among people like him
To remedy a wrong or undertake a debt.