1. Ask the ruins between the shining sands
And between the sand dunes, from the cup of turmoil,

2. What remains of dwellings after every summer heat
And those who swagger among the clouds,

3. And the howling winds roused by the south wind
With violent gusts from a northbound land,

4. Other than the ruins not warmed by fires at night
Like remnants of revelation lines on an imam.

5. And other than immortal Khawla, famed until
By them a mark not pointing to Syria.

6. As if three pigeons circles above them
And flew not with the other pigeons.

7. Beside them his tears flowed
Like the unique one among systems flowed.

8. May God reward the singing girls the day they were firm
And the day I met them in peaceful Salam,

9. With what they disappointed me and ruined my faith,
The reward of the sinful among mankind,

10. If their eyes shine one day
And none could be found like any of them erect.

11. They wanted on an evening of drinking to kill me
And did not object shedding inviolable blood.

12. And they said to a little girl among them who is
Neither endowed with glory nor refined in speech,

13. Her scarf anxiously wandering upon her
Soiling the carpet above scattered sandalwood.

14. She sways then is awakened by the rhythm
As if the heavy stalks of sugar cane awakened her.

15. As if their custom when the sun rose
Was to unveil from behind the kohl make-up.

16. Zayidi ‘kill him,’ so she threw my heart
With an arrow not witnessing any word.

17. And she who wiped their skulls neither had
A cot nor blood nor tent ropes.

18. Nuzhah and her women companions competing
In charm and flirt more than all women.

19. Unjustly killed without crime
And they kill none but a young hero.

20. And my companion said in the belly of a slim girl
As his eyes poured on her anklets.

21. He saw the slave-girls keeping her standing
As the caravan cut its leading rope.

22. Disturbed beds as if their legs
Were tent poles propping up an enclosure.

23. I find you don’t recall the cold of tents
In the terrace of a smooth plain fisting winds.

24. Nor the cows whose saddles of the Armenian lady
Were shortened among the tents.

25. For them are platforms dripping blood
And what was hoarded from the paste of perfume.

26. They wipe with it the motes of hail collapsing
Upon the giggling ones from the clouds.

27. On an evening of summer contained
An expanse from a platter or rings.

28. Reminding me of righteous nights
So they spoke madness and raving.

29. I said: Be chaste, this isn’t
The time of youth for the flirtatious.

30. So do not fret, maybe after rapture
You will meet me even if you despair of the hopes.

31. You will not, even if weeping intensely
Be more fervent, but I am a man whose confidence leads me.

32. He said: you disobeyed me and by the cave of the grower
I disobeyed, confused, barely crossing the rugged valley.

33. As if his mountains and family were floating
Upon their edges like cure of ringworm.

34. As if the ruins in it
Were causes of whiteness from ostrich rubbings.

35. They travelled to a country but their platforms rejected them
Severed from the bundle of words.

36. Qawwas of gum trees or an ascension of ephemerals
To the pasture of every hasty ostrich.

37. Subjugators seeking spoils from them
Refugees from the tribes of the folk of Ham.

38. Its star sparkles as the pleiades withdrawal
From the dark clouds.

39. As if the wounds upon his hands passed over them
The branding by one of the deadly sins.

40. I crossed amidst boards going far
Without connection or collectedness.

41. Dishevelled they rode at night and at daybreak departed
Upon a staff whose functions are diverse.

42. Carpets from the daughters of the soft sand dunes
As if their men were on ostrich back .

43. You can see the delusions of awe as if
The stars descended from their water springs.

44. If he tightens its reigns upon it
His milkers retreat from the girth strap.

45. As if the saddlebags raised from their saddlebags
Dens possessing howls from hedgehogs.

46. And when the saddled camels kneel
Not humble or muddied by soil.

47. As if the neigh of the zebras in labour
And change near the slopes from ostriches.

48. The summer heat pulled him and the winter winds blew
The good smelling breeze.

49. It murmured when the devoted she camel from him
Was tightened by both straps from the bridle.

50. And she carries me, secured, trusted
Burdening me with worries leading to glory.

51. She limps when the saddle camel became frightened of her
Like the branded one limping with the girth sore.

52. When the brackets of its cheekbones detached
And its mantle fell tearing the smooth skin.

53. It lengthened the bridle and played with it
With most mischievous like the marble.

54. You would see emergence from the essence of filth
Sticking to the firm saddle and baring the hump.

55. As if the antlers of the black oryx
From the hemispheres upon turbans.

56. They gored its sides from both its flanks
The tightened saddles in a cooking pot.

57. You see it after tiring its strength
Swollen eyes the stench of the mosquito net.

58. Visiting the elect Amr bin Ka’b
Visiting the most enterprising elevated in glory.

59. To him her persistence and when she came to him
She came with Syria the best young man from Sham .

60. Came freely both her hands
A plentiful spring pouring rainwater.

61. Mu’awiya from the noble of lineages
Reached the peak of glorious lineage.

62. A young man who does not prevent kindness from him
Smiling winter and filled years.

63. The flooding Euphrates when it rose high
Is not more abundant than you greetings if

64. It skimmed the surface of a deep pool
Or rose at the brink of a dam.

65. Nor roses in a glimpse or on a meadow
Of the giggling ones the darkness of night.

66. It left his tribal lands empty and protected
What diverted to migration.

67. Those in front and behind fled from it
Their flight from before the powerful onslaught.

68. And it does not cease to drag every day
A slain man from men or venomous snakes.

69. As if tongues were sharpened then when
It blazed each enflamed became embers.

70. Diverting Kharijites from its two springs
Surrounding its wide nostrils.

71. With more cutting in every day
As if its rumbling was the clanking of shields.