1. My heart bears witness, it does not lie,
And my tearful eyes keep silent, yet they express,

2. And I have, as proof of love, a wizened cheek,
And a heart tossed about in the fire of passion.

3. I still have, for the abandoned encampments,
A yearning that I have not ceased to pine for.

4. And though the memory of the departed distracts me from protecting the encampment,
I stand not knowing where to go.

5. So I converse with a quarter that has remained empty,
And a tear that spends the night pouring.

6. And patience, though the loved ones have drifted apart,
And love, though they have traveled to far off places.

7. It is frightened by the flashing of lightning,
And sleeps fitfully with the cooing of doves.

8. And a tear on my cheeks whose clouds gather
Whenever the doves begin their laments.

9. It is stirred by the radiance of the encampment and its shadows,
Then fulfills its vows on the branch of a myrtle.

10. By God, it is a fire whose eyelids know no sleep,
When the first star of night appears.

11. It stays up watching for it, and without meeting it,
It bids goodnight to Anqaa who disappeared over the horizon.

12. So my body has returned to the living quarters,
Yet my heart is with the loved ones in the traveling party.

13. And avoiding them was already agonizing,
So how will it be when it becomes avoidance!

14. In my passion, I am not confident in the first
Glimpse of a promise that shines from a tryst.

15. Nor am I perplexed in the sands of the encampment, standing
Greeted on the path of ambitions by good fortune.

16. Asking about Hind, but when she traveled on,
He stayed, greeted at the abode by Zainab.

17. She has, from the desert gazelle, the charm of her glance
When it strays from him into the thicket of acacia.

18. The magic of her eyes robs him of his patience,
And a sweet utterance enraptures him.

19. Hair white at her temples enthralls her,
And a juicy lip captivates him.

20. I will not forget the day of farewell, when there appeared,
To bid us goodbye, that rosy-cheeked beauty.

21. There is no comfort unless their company has departed,
No patience unless it is overwhelmed by separation.

22. Who can blame the ardent lover when distance is his adversary?
And who can, for a day, reproach separation?

23. I was blamed for a sin in love I did not commit,
And had it not been for my tears, I would not have sinned in love.

24. Yearning - when the traveling party sets out earnestly I see it
In myself following the camel-litters insistently.

25. A longing for the people of the abode drives him,
And a passion for the maiden consoles and preoccupies him.

26. There is no trash heap Muzna discharged upon the abode,
Without a stream from it gushing in every land.

27. When they sway in the air and crouch down,
There hangs over them, above the camel litter, a drape.

28. And if a cloud runs out of what it pours forth,
An everlasting drizzle insists upon it, never running dry.

29. With more copious than my tears, though the caravan travelers are few
And the water-skins of the attackers have become foreign.

30. No Doe in the gardens began the day
Wailing for the radiance of the encampment and chanting.

31. She has, in the branches of the boughs, a trilling,
That nearly surpasses what is with the dove in eloquence.

32. In sweeter verse than poetry whose words
I string together as I deem fit and arrange.

33. Poems that have made the odes wander
East and west amongst mankind.

34. If only I had preceded with them at first,
Then Nizar would have coveted them and expressed them.

35. And had they been in the time of a people who preceded,
They would have been orated in the wilderness and wooed.

36. And if someone else coveted them and imagined
Falsely, from the merit in them he could gain.

37. They are a pride for the composers of elegies,
And a profit for the composers of eulogies.

38. The mind of the adept chooses it decisively,
Inclining to it, and disregarding anything else.

39. Musk's aroma was never emitted except you found
That the most fragrant musk was from them.