1. He is the specter led to passion’s flood by yearnings,
And you, O night, conceal no secret, O obscurer!

2. The dawn speaks of its revels, and the lightning
Betrays you—wanton dawn, betraying lightning!

3. When darkness donned its blackest raiments and slept,
No watcher stood secure, no neighbor free from fright.

4. The night of Nu‘mān when the lightning flashed with love—
Yes, by my father, flashing Yamanite lightning!

5. Sirius crept softly down her cloak of darkness on us,
Winding its folds close round us like a gliding snake.

6. We halted where the howdah’s litter had been spread,
While thunder groaned, wind shrieked, rain pattered, branches bent,

7. Leaves rustled—so the night made merry till daybreak.
When dawn unveiled her glades, the stars in heaven paled

8. Like flowers whose peddles at a zephyr’s touch decay.
Had clouds not canopied the hilltops with their tents,

9. The vines had not grown drunken, languid at midday.
How many slender stems were swayed throughout that copse

10. By the soft shadows of the twisting branches’ flight!
Graceful when rising, disobedient when they stoop,

11. Hips serried close, then widely spaced in willful slight.
They shame the boughs, while swaying coyly, and they flout

12. The sand-dunes—though themselves are sand-dunes like the rest.
God watered one late afternoon, till shadows shrank,

13. Shortening our sport, but bringing youthful zest
At memory my heart exults, my passion’s stirred,

14. Though Sulwā pays no heed to this or holds apart.
They turn back to that time now past, that was so sweet,

15. Later maligned when days had changed and turned perverse.
Life was still verdant then, I plucked its fruits at will,

16. My person decked; gazelles were leashed to take their share.
I lived in union, rose again to union’s arms,

17. No estrangement ever soured affection’s intercourse.
My friends seemed—seeing them squat close on their heels—

18. Like wise old men, yet they were callow as gazelles.
They failed us in each right, each wrong—deceitful they,

19. Audacious this one, that one impudent and rude.
I fancied them beside me, seated on the dune slopes,

20. My friend the star, and Muzayn’s son, reproaching me;
A goblet that the sun had swathed within its cloak,

21. Its sparks seeming like paired or single stars.
If it were passed from hand to hand, there dripped from it

22. Pearl-drops like clustered berries oozing down the bowl.
How pure the taste!—they drank it while both singing, glad—

23. It lightened hands but weighed the eyelids down with sleep.
Majīd of Khazīmah enticed me—he who dons

24. The ample coats of ‘Adnān when the chill strikes home—
Foremost when glory is at stake, yet few to match

25. When the arena is filled for fatal single combat.
He holds the reins of self-control, never unsettled

26. By wine’s long draughts or tunes that tempt the soul to sin.
If praise should shake him, verdant becomes his visage,

27. Receiving payment doubled over for his modesty.
His hand will moisten famished lips when steeds are reined

28. Amid the press, the troop all scrambling to attain the pool.
His coursers, stoked by whip to a white-heat, seem

29. Battalions raining down on them like fiery stars.
They home in on the does till it appears they are,

30. When loosed to charge, long lances piercing haunches through.
On days you’ll see the banners writhing like serpents

31. That rear and hiss when ruffled by the winds of chance.
If they unfurl, the pages leap up to the saddles

32. Whose natural gifts are courage and intelligence.
I asked who might surpass Sa‘d ibn Mālik’s line,

33. When the tribes vied in boasting of their noblest stock:
“By the Sword of the State,” they said, “Ibn Bahā’s scion,

34. ‘Adnān’s, whenever Qahtān’s arise in wrath.”
Two lions snarling when the war is refractory,

35. Their faces in the fray like mirror-torches gleam.
In their sheltering shade the hopes of mankind hide

36. When secretaries’ ink and parchments fail to save them.
Blessed rain are they, new life when drought is done,

37. In peace, a feast; in war, a piercing blade, a lance.
Each is a blow that shakes the assailant’s very soul,

38. Where anguished cries will pierce his couch’s canopy.
They came full-armed from loins made strong by war,

39. Their kinfolk rest assured of life and hearth secure.
A shaded verandah where the thronging guests appear,

40. Question on question voiced by those who gather round.
White-cheeked they lounge, the sky eclipsed by spears,

41. Bare blades, wine flowing and the wine-skins overthrown.
Scarlet their tents, the beasts they love to hunt,

42. theirs alone the power, theirs the pens that rule.
Horses they mount, brisk youths, eyes revelling

43. In vanguard feats, ears pricked to catch their name.
They filled the Iraqi field with steeds and men,

44. As though a herd of mountain goats, a flock of cranes.
Their warriors plunge into the waves of death—

45. Stout-hearted when the white swords glitter—valiant, brave!
On each fighter’s chest, between the coat of mail,

46. His prowess shines; upon his brow, the zeal to strike.
He trails the skirts of his linked armor like

47. A hero who, when spared, is mild and gentle.
He ransoms with his lifeblood, if Dishonor points

48. Her finger, even when athirst the sacrifice is made.
He has a fiery, noble lineage that scorns

49. Restraint, as the high-bred colt disdains the rein.
When against him the gibe of kings is raised,

50. They slink away like shadows shot by morning light.
Glorious his visage when he smiles, as though the sun

51. At daybreak strips the veil of night in haste away.
Impregnable his guard, no wolf can pick it off,

52. Unlike the vile hyena’s ways of treachery.
He awes as though white hairs were mingled on his youthful brow—

53. Water blended with the wine’s pure beauty.
His house is one round which glory hovers,

54. His neighbors are the radiant celestial orbs.
His fort is built of sharpened blades, pillars hewn

55. From Indian scimitars now scoured of each stain.
Had he in bygone times possessed Man’s Elbow, then

56. The lion had not fled the hounds in ignominy.
O best of those who follow him in his campaigns,

57. Trusting, when sated, in the vulture and the wolf!
I called you to accede—and you reined in its darkness,

58. Your helping hands placed firmly on the course of Time.
You raised my friends up to the glow of an ancient fire

59. That travellers see by night, and by it guide their course.
Over them loyalty’s shade from your dark orchard spread,

60. Whose branches intertwine, whose boughs stretch out.
They did not think of home, though it was sweet,

61. Nor were their saddlebags too small to bear away their spoils.
Glory is but a pool filled from the spring of Khindif,

62. Pure and refreshing, ringed about by loving friends.