1. Does not your longing stir the deserted abodes?
Or does not your elder pine away through separation?

2. Or has the wild cat met its death,
And it betrayed you when they bore it?

3. And you saw their teats drawn up
Ascending the sand-hills, the track of which is sand.

4. It milks the pregnant camels in due season,
And those in milk, though barren and dry.

5. And as though the gazelles of Sarim were with it
Under the thorn bushes shaded from the sun.

6. Your heart was melted the day they departed
At the moment of separation, O impetuous doe!

7. It turned aside to a copse, which contained it,
And for it the thickets of Al-Had are a dwelling secluded.

8. A shade which appears when the sun shines,
And no darkness is there for its night.

9. So the music of its cord made its dwellings joyful,
And resounded for it with the moaning of the lute.

10. It showed its beauties to its visitor
In the evening, stripped bare, not clothed.

11. Swaying, the zephyr blowing on it,
It almost spoke plainly, and would scarcely stammer.

12. It laid down, to try them, the ornaments,
And took off its long robes and wrapped them up.

13. So Imru al-Qais, son of Amr, gave water to drink when
Those most generous shared the remembrance of them.

14. How many a piercing thrust is there for you not random,
Which, though it would not cause death, has no cure!

15. You pierced with it, then you struck again,
Another, while they descend, if they should descend.

16. The parturient camel hastens with its burden,
The juice of valiant men mixed with it decreases.

17. And after parturition, when it was purified,
And its sides flowed with milk, it was covered with butter.

18. And when the weaned foal attains his time of drinking
In the hot weather, and his delight is the water-skin.

19. It drinks the contents of the water-skins in its joy,
Not ceasing till its sides and its hinder-parts are wet.