1. A dark-skinned beauty weeps from yearning,
And a lion has vanished from its lair.

2. Beneath eyelids flowing with tears
Is a watery eye, while entrails writhe with passion.

3. When the Iraqi caravan enters her land
Where the black night shadows fall thick,

4. And protects the neighbour from harm, each noble youth
Is so generous he almost kisses the ground.

5. She turns away with a heart that sparks wildly
When the hands of sorrow strike its flint.

6. The women of the tribe say, “Where is the son of our sister?
Tell us of him, you have our lives!”

7. “May God protect him! Is there in your country
A brother of generosity who keeps faith with the noble?”

8. “The one you left behind in your land
Is a young man whose fathers were famed for glory.

9. “Oh Baghdad, how you make him forget Najd and his family!
Wretched is he who would buy your Baghdad with his Najd.”

10. I’d ransom them with my soul, if they but heard my condition
Each bracelet of theirs would shed its pearls in sighing.

11. Do I not live among a people whose love for me
Turns to rancour when I display affection?

12. Every slanderer wounds my honour among them.
I parry their sharp tongues and show them patience,

13. I defend them when swords run red with blood,
Yet I am abandoned among them, while sheathed in the scabbard.

14. Drunk with the rapture of their wealth,
Yet wealth is useless unless it earns praise.

15. So who will join me in my lonely dreaming
With a heart secure from malice?

16. Who counts riches as a fluttering vanity,
A bramble full of thorns and writhing snakes?

17. Were it not for the wolf's treachery,
I'd not complain of the lion's fury!