1. Sing for the beloved, O singer!
Wear out your voice as the nights wear out their garments,

2. And change your tone and change your style,
Like the embroidered white robes of Jurzan so fair,

3. As if the two Iblaq were maidens of noble birth
Who when they lean forth from those hills

4. Scattered bands unite and meet,
As flowers met virgins equal in their charms,

5. As the pupils' hands, when yesterday they met,
Scattered gems that had been hoarded jealously,

6. They hid their throats' soft beauty and were fain
To grant the wish those swooning lovers sigh for vain.

7. How changed is he who dwelt in this abode
To see its distant parts filled with wild goats at play!

8. He who still lived here left against his will,
Led by a fate that never could to thee be kind.

9. Long, long has night enfolded me since once
My staff stood steady, though the ground beneath might slide.

10. But night has turned insistently to gloom,
And troubled waters once so clear are troubled still.

11. I drank it sparkling once, now troubled; and how strange
Are concurring fates! The troubled soul is yoked to night.

12. If day and night alike one's wishes foil,
Nothing so stops vexation's growth as fixed resolve.

13. My firm intent is that I will not mix
My soul, my life, with direr ills that burden me,

14. Warned by my ignorance. I see so clear
What gloomy thoughts upon my mind have brought.

15. Naught limits trials like experience;
I find no guide like time's recurring message.

16. A thought took wing at night, but nothing tells
Of thought at night like hasty deed come morning.

17. By a mirage the thirsty dupes are fooled.
It flies as the deluded think to grasp the flying sprite.

18. Midway between two springs our guide must be,
Lest we should miss the union of the meeting waters.

19. When night spreads there her canopy so dark,
The genius of the waste sings songs unto the wold.

20. I made me towards another land more bright,
Cheered by a morn whose breezes shift the skiey clouds,

21. We scare the game at times or sometimes wing
Our arrows at a victim from our place of vantage.

22. When the fleet ostrich starts, his footing fails,
And swifter than the ridges of the sands he rushes madly.

23. A ransom for a band of early day companions,
Who helped me at the pitchfork with their persons and their wealth,

24. Who smote wrongdoing men, though innocence might suffer,
When ignorance provoked the deed that out of justice grew.

25. When our loud cry for help startled the air,
Their 'Here am I' drove off the spoilers of our goods.

26. We rode when day broke clearly fast and far,
Of that tribe seeing only the well-armed rear-guard.

27. A race of ravening wolves, who when day dawns
Will keep the wild game racing to the evening shadows.

28. Proud lions maned whose swords when battle stirred
Smote terrible as doom decreed by judges wise.

29. None turned of our rearmost but met us or outran,
While we ignored the laggards, pressing on the foremost.

30. We charged them, reined our steeds, no word we spoke,
Bared the keen Yemen blade that glitteringly flashes.

31. A shower of javelins flew between, we shot,
No random shots; each finds the mark his arrow seeks.

32. You would suppose the thickets' very judgement day,
As the keen falchions played beneath those coverts green.

33. Awhile, then they withdrew by stealthy paths,
Winding anomalous ways down secluded valleys.

34. While our keen swords from every bare arm fell
Shearing both belt and robe, both raiment and the frame beneath.

35. When we had left them all a gory heap of slain
Whose latest groan the Lord of Mercy hardly heard,

36. We turned back where the lion crouches, lo!
Our heels were ruddy with the life blood welling high.

37. We stained the cheeks of every hypocrite therewith,
Made drink the hot blood poured from hands that slaughter deal.

38. You see Al-'Akr in chest and chin dyed red,
His mailcoat pierced in four-and-twenty places.

39. Two hands that might the swinging Crab control
And grasp the Lion's unshorn locks in fight.

40. A people who when men complain of wrong,
Plant their long spears aright and so redress the wrong.

41. Meet were they on a fearful day to stain
Their loosened hair with blood, and leave the victim slain.

42. If we are harmed, we do not care but bravely bear,
Misfortune patiently, like noble chiefs of liberal soul.

43. We saved our tribe what time the heat of battle burned,
Joining against Jumran's whelps our raging squadrons.

44. Hanifa – when God willed not that their midst
Should boast a single cool, calm man to curb their zeal,

45. We came when they in fancied security reposed,
Then taught them lessons harsh as we had taught our foes.

46. Smote them like ravening beasts, though dens secure
Were there, like lions maddened in the desert wold,

47. With honest blades, while round us our bold troop
Pressing and circling gave example how to strike.

48. You see Al-Mashrafi, his fearful blows fall fast
Blood-red upon his pummel till it blushed before.

49. You would suppose the arm grew long that day for us,
Both hosts were linked together by that red rain dripping slow,

50. When we smote off their eggs, the brooding parent birds
Swooped down, but only found their callow young laid low.

51. The greedy heads that look for prey alone,
Came there and met a fate they had not sought to know.

52. Off went the proud neck, arrogant in its strength,
Kicked by the falling beast amidst the slippery mire.

53. Still in the battle's freight some noble band
Will live, praise God! though destiny some lives deny.

54. Safe from all tribes behind stand my brave kin,
Nor fear they harm from any foe who stands behind.

55. I was declared too weak to bear the heavy load
Of such a house, but arduous toil I still defy.

56. A people you will see who fight and fling
The ranks of battle open and the gates of triumph high.

57. Weigh us with mankind in the balance; we
Outweigh their dreams of glory and ascend the scale.

58. Our road descended to the meadows green,
Nor like the Red Rock's bandits did we hunt the cave.

59. With Ibnujwan's brave son and Ibn Muhorriq
We came, they led the victims in the rear.

60. There were the 'Udas, the Ch Chaled's nobles,
Brave lances all; rivals for fame and high emprise.

61. We met the foe at Duftaf, firm as rocks
Immovable, with iron moulds hammered in showers.

62. When we had charged their squadrons with our troops
Cased in their mail, lances chosen carefully,

63. Urged by the hindmost of the flying steeds
You might have deemed them plashing in a shoreless sea,

64. We marched on them with swords bare in our hands
Like lions wroth, and pitiless in onset high.

65. When we had hemmed them in on every side
Fate's queernes caught them by the neck to die.