1. The caravan turned around the heat's ravines,
And the clouds cast down their litters upon it.

2. Answer me, O lover, if you fancied a halt—
Nay, but tears streaming from mine eyes have pardoned you.

3. Where are the gazelles, the eyes, and the small deer
That now and then it plays with and plays with it?

4. The Mother of Ni'al is no ungirdled would-be bride—
Long is the train of her gown, grave her steps as she walks.

5. At dawn he went seeking booty to assuage him
Behind him a wealth perchance that would purify his drink.

6. But horsemen met him, their swords glinting
In the morning, and the gloom of evening bows down its shadows,

7. And did not let him be until his sword was shattered
And all together his columns fled in disarray.

8. He became carrion for the hyenas and a morsel
For every old vulture glutting itself on the flesh of the slain.

9. His friend returned to her with the news,
Tearing his garments in grief, acting as her mourner.

10. So she spent a day—let my foe meet the like of it—
Long, over him who was buried in the tomb and absent.

11. And she passed a night while her anguish for him
Was more hidden, swiftly bewailing him while the stars crept slowly.

12. On the day I bade farewell to a lovely gazelle,
Crescent-like, while dawn gleamed, showing its eyebrow,

13. And a tattooed Berber who could hardly conceal his spite
With his sly looks and sideways glances,

14. And he slandered Sulayma to me, pretending to advise me—
And of a man's advisers are some who lie to him—

15. And his speech he embellished here and there
To deceive me while night lurks to waylay its talkers;

16. I drew him near me, and he did not realize
That when glory is counted, he is not of those I court favor with,

17. And I lent him my ear so that he might think
I was quick to do that which he was asking me for,

18. And if ‘Amr and al-Mughira had tried to trick me
I would have frustrated them—so let the seeker of evil beware,

19. For I am not like the hawk when it glances round
And its eyes confirm it in what it is watching,

20. Nor the fierce lion whose rage equals mine
Even if its claws are bloodied in the fray.

21. So I said to him when it was clear that I
Am a man of life whom no companion of his need suffer:

22. "Do you try to seduce me, shame upon you!
I will fling away the rope which you are pulling.

23. And I will shun him whom you have tempted with it
And ransom him with my life, he whom you are slandering,

24. For whom hearts rave, and the loved one is triumphant,
While dancers sway to and fro on their way to Miná,

25. Like me drunk with wine whose ferment intoxicates its drinker
In the evening when the beloved's caravan set out.

26. Remembrance acts him out to me—but far, far from me
His abode, as though I were addressing him!