1. You departed without reason
And all this avoidance was unjustified

2. Sleepless nights cannot destroy the honesty between us
Sleepless nights that were veiled with curtains and thus estranged

3. Afflicted, as if the brightness of her jewelry
Was on a cheek of youthful radiance

4. Impossible, like locust thorns and pearls
Of ambergis and curled hair

5. When the slanderers allude to evil between us
The true love message cannot be denied

6. You are not she whom my poetry described
Settling in meadows or shrubs’ thickets

7. You obeyed the defamers and talebearers with their meddling
So their ropes are deployed to climb

8. She made you a promise, if she had kept it
Like the promise of ‘Urqub to his brother in Yathrib

9. She said if she becomes stingy with you and makes excuses
You will doubt, and if she reveals her love, you will train yourself

10. So I said to her, “My she-camels,” but she did not provoke me,
The owner of a herd of speckled white camels

11. She returned like a spindle returning from flesh
To pasture among houses and tents

12. Through her we enjoyed the sweetness of youth
Thus the verses of the love messenger who adorns were successful

13. You have not severed a lover’s desire
By early dawn or a restful late evening

14. With double-edged words on the cheeks of a wine-skin
Like your worry is gravel on a water-skin

15. When I beat the tambourine or dance lightly
She watches me without the slightest attention

16. With an eye like the mirror of a craftsman she turns it
To its stone from chosen white Meccan stone

17. As if near its edges when it was adorned
Were bunches of a fruitful vine’s grapes

18. She wears it for a while then takes it off
Like the lies of the innocent in a soft cloak

19. And I was boasting while the birds were in their nests
And the dew water flowing on every tail

20. With poetry like the plague of locusts its flashes
Repel every stranger causing estrangement

21. Unblemished ambergris completes its perfume
From the breath of a departing one fearing the evil eye

22. A shirt like the color of pink has adorned it
To sell the cloak in the market cubicles

23. Flowing like the necklace of Andrew embellished
With a neck that is filled but not pretentious

24. It has two tones recognizable by the neck between them
Like the ears of a frightened rabbit amidst noise

25. And a hollow air under a body as if it
Were from an unblemished, smooth mount

26. Wildcats like the dome of a filled container overlook
A chest like scattered and ripped fiber

27. And thick voices like the necks of wolves their chewing
Is the safety of the flames covering every ship

28. Brown like the stones of torrents as if they are
Pebbles pouring down from Mount Tuhlub

29. When we hunt we do not fight unfairly
But call from afar, “Get on the mount!”

30. A trusted brother whom the living does not curse his personality
Patient with misfortunes not caused by anyone

31. If they run out of supplies, surely his
Reins and stallion can be used as livelihood

32. We saw old men herding beautiful camels
Like the walking of young maidens in soft sand

33. While we were wandering and the knot of his camel saddle
Came upon us like bees from a pierced hole

34. So we followed the traces of the old men with honesty
Quick like useful pouring rain

35. You see the rat distracted from the pot it desires
Fleeing the aridity of the desert because of intense burning

36. The rat hid from its burrows so it was as if
Infiltrating it was the rain pouring from the clouds

37. Thus confusion remained for the crawling snakes
Trampling upon them with quick, repeated strikes

38. Bold on hot foreheads and protected
By their shields as if they are the surface of Mount Shi’b

39. And he challenged with enmity between oxen and a ewe
And a lustful billy goat like scattered hay

40. So we said, “Indeed, it would have been prey for a hunter!”
So they hid their superior intelligence from us

41. The hands kept exchanging with a chanter
To loud wailing like blood-stained crying

42. As if the flaws of the wild beasts around our dens
And luggage were the panic which was not penetrated

43. And we rode like we were from an evening flock
Whose shoes were among straight and curved tent poles

44. And the leader of the caravan went like the shaking of a rabbit’s head
Annoyingly by him from a repeated sneeze

45. And he competed with us in experience
Dear to us like loved fine wool