1. If I wept for the caravans, the ascent
To Laila wearied me, atop the valley’s valleys caravans

2. Gazelles regard us from every sleepy thicket
White does, few are their likes

3. The onlooker likens them to frightened oryxes
Upon them the branches’ shade is plentiful

4. Their protector is al-Hijmanah, where
If we lived, are boon and ascendance

5. And lads of truthfulness, I built from them
A shelter in Mawma’s wasteland, they wander

6. As a zealous love wandered in al-Ribat
In longing on the furthest high place, horses

7. Banu Ka’b and Malik’s youth joined
With a matter, like the breast of a sword, and it is grave

8. You see every loose-armed panic-stricken one
For whom disgrace yearns, feeble

9. More emaciated from the youths, trembling from the dew
As the spear-shaft trembled vigorously in the right hand

10. As if the evening fires, when our band was alert
Were ululations and howls, and after them howls

11. Upon them the sons of sitting-places, covered in sores
Turtle-doves, a neighing ardently surrounding them

12. As if exhaled musk poured onto their chargers’ breasts
Flowing down to the chins

13. When she went out from death’s immersion, it returned her
To death, the harsh edges, gloomy

14. They left in no settled lands anything fancied
Nor women, but for them there was wailing

15. They left behind Bahira and al-Duhayb, upon which
Are multitudes of birds, for them enclosures