1. The camels of Umm 'Amr have become lean after a fertile season,
And the returning camels are distressed, with Sidr trees and salty grasslands,

2. While the beasts are safe, the wolf packs prowl them
As if the people's tobacco were untended and withered.

3. Shall I show you the live cargo heading out
Like palm trees adorned with soft fruit and clusters?

4. The camels of Ruhat descended and girded up as though
The water-drawers were irrigating the palm trunks.

5. Then they drank at Nabat while the camels appeared
As if the dripping from them at the watering troughs were crocodiles.

6. Then my sight lost them as they reached
The outskirts of the encampment, and they cried "Let's rest!" or went on.

7. Unless you are does whose tents are built,
For you are the adornment of travel, ever erect.

8. Among them is the mother of the two boys who
Has captivated my heart, so I cannot succeed while she lives.

9. She is like a lovely doll decorated with
Jewelry, scent and fine clothes.

10. From you is lightning whose night I stay awake watching
As if it were a lamp in the meadows of Syria,

11. With thunder crashing like the zeal of a stallion pursued
By docile, bleating ewes.

12. So they bristle at the stallion's zeal yet
No arousal or seminal emission comes over them.

13. By them passed a swarming, murky bird
Bearing gazelles and ostriches in its wings.

14. Had they not recoiled from the stench it would have destroyed them
As the stench of the west wind destroys the cisterns.

15. This while the bare hillock sheltering me
Is hot, sun-scorched, yet cooling for the sun.

16. I remained in it with disheveled companions who,
When the sparks of war flare up, are like spears.

17. A brother finds no shade sharing her shelter
From the poisonous heat of summer, completely withered.