1. And he whose days are not numbered
Our days about us clarify and interpret

2. We made for them what lies between the lump of a soul
To where its two voices are most pierced

3. The morn we left Ibn Juhdur’s son
Lying dead, while the hilltops oozed

4. And al-Hawfazan escaped us, as though
He were a horned ram released from tether

5. The morn of Raghām, when one is saved by a stab
From the lord of deaths, he may slip or miss his step

6. They met the same fate met by al-Lujaymi before
Qatādah, when he came to us seeking vengeance

7. So he returned to a rock, after his band was scattered
By the evilest of what a warrior brings

8. And the sword had reached from the heat of his face
To where his pierced nose met

9. And Jushshāmah al-Dhulayy took him
Back, fettered, to our kinsfolk, his head bleeding

10. They recognize him amid the houses, bound,
From the lines Shaybān's sword engraved

11. And Hawdhah was saved, after his head tilted,
By a Yemeni, when the bone mixes with brain-pierced

12. So a belt held him from behind
On the back of a skinny steed with cropped tail

13. The morn was as if Ibn Layjim and Washkir
Were ostriches fleeing through Al-Kadīd’s desert