1. The teardrop translates passion now,
Though suspicion in you it did allow.

2. None but tears your eyelids draw
No fire but in your ribs aflame

3. You fancied distance cures love's woe
What wretched hope is this you know

4. Restlessness will strike, the eve of departure nears
Lovesick camels for the road appear

5. Your eyes shouldn't sleep when in Nejd you remain
While the riders accused, their tracks apparent remain

6. Let not the west of the eye dry, that its lively one went
With her the camel herd of Suhaym bent

7. Roaming the distant barren plain as though
When night falls, the bright stars shine

8. My friends, of my plight do not be fooled
Think not that I from ardour have cooled

9. Never did I know before her glances' charm
That the Babylonian eyelids arrows arm

10. I panicked before the beloved drink was mixed
Her writhing from ardour and pain depicted

11. No longing lover remembered his cherished days
No one abandoned, no one in love did craze

12. How when her abode and his are demolished and decayed
The rope of union knotted, frayed

13. When longing grew intense, the bowstring tore
My mount from skinniness, the saddle slip deplore

14. I took news of Udhayb and its people in breath
But breathing its air no use gives

15. With a teardrop down the cheek in disgrace
And another on the floor of the camp its trace

16. Oh, my long woeful night I kept awake
Grief, darker than my night, my talks did make

17. My burning liver, the darts of love did puncture
From injustice, anguished, they did me lure

18. I endure her estrangement and distance so far
What strength in two broken ones found ever are?

19. To her I complain of what I bear from these two
But she said: the youth in love, crazed and untrue

20. If what I bear from the madness of love
To a rock I said, it would melt from the shove

21. My lowly state, if I see but oppressor and gloom
Should I learn but from the like of me, whom?

22. Each day farewells bring wonders
That alarm a heart separation encumbers

23. Before me none endured the woe of separation
Or good faith, as I have shown veneration

24. In ardour and plaints of love none has conceded
Or surrendered like me, so conceded

25. Who will bring the home closer, so I can see
Days of reunion with loved ones, glee

26. A time the meadows revive in beauty
And I am blessed with union, at last duty

27. I will praise it with most eloquent words
That adorn poetry with prose as graceful birds

28. I will dot it with stars as pages of a book
Embroidered so fine, a keen eye it took

29. Poems the narrators never did acclaim
Nor for the like of them, a mouth did name

30. If recited in gatherings, it's like musk scent flows
Among the throng, its aroma sweetly goes

31. It spreads fragrance among people, its ample perfume
Like the scattering of friends' dust with ambergris consumed

32. My friend, when a lightning spark flashed in the dark
I trembled and to it my friends did hark

33. As if it warned me against visiting that I adore
And my doing so it did deplore

34. How Ne'aman's rise shone when the morning gale did wake
To salute it, and the withered trees to raise

35. Did turtle doves return to the branches high?
Cooing melodies, on the treetops nigh

36. Wakening the soul's passions, as though they know
The secret love in my heart that did grow

37. How the dove exposes her woes to me
On the branch of love, yet I conceal my plea

38. She sees my desire and the love in me swell
When my tears from my eyelids well

39. Not out of knowledge of my hidden, inner cyst
But yearning gives her this intrinsic gist

40. Her cooing reminds me of bygone days
And old love that kindles the heart's blaze

41. I weep for them, tears pour down in a stream
Most blood, some water, it would seem

42. I inhale their souls in ardent crave
And the vestiges of vows I gave

43. But after they went and their dwellings declined
Will news of loved ones lost reach my mind?

44. She persists in pursuing the ruins though far
Not minding the toil, nor the wounds that mar

45. Roaming the darkness and waste till you'd think
She is robbed by the ostrich fierce, clawed and pink

46. I visit sites no mounted rider would see
Fearing the echo in it, he would flee

47. He whose heart youth enslaves
Will weep for the abode and its signs he craves

48. And wrongly enjoy the taste of love to the brim
But if reason returned, he would block it on a whim

49. Though I have patience for every incident
That would shake a solid rock violent

50. And war reveals its fangs, I have nerve to brace
Where the spears shatter in my face

51. When horses meet in a fright, whenever
At the target, the slim lance doesn't deter

52. And where valiant heroes in assaults vie as
Motes in a sand cloud, in number and in size

53. A throat, an orange sun and a white sword inspire them
In the stand of death, their souls to fire them

54. Bare horses outsprinting the wind and their trace
To the farthest goal, and most bare the noble race

55. On each warrior's temple, a strike shows clear
On each charger's chest, for the polished lance, no fear

56. In each land, their colts, when provoked, scratch the plain
The stallions with staunch reins, riders holding tight rein

57. The land wears a coat with spears riddled and torn
The sun, a face with skulls veiled and worn

58. If I say I silence the eloquent wit
Or enter a fierce fray, undaunted and fit

59. The nature of souls has its own ways and means
Practiced before us since past days and regimes

60. If reason tries to deter me from loving
I put up a fight not easing or gloving

61. Should I heed its censure, even if it scolds?
When I have defied its prohibitive holds

62. Never will I listen, for it knows full well
My belief in loyalty will never dispel

63. I swear by a wild cow grieving the loss
Of her heard when their tracks were crossed

64. Vanished among sand dunes, she is bent
Languishing with yearning and pain unspent

65. She suffers the bitter separation it seems
Like one who drinks venom, most violent of teams

66. With greater agony than a heart torn asunder
Keeping company with a thought to ponder

67. On a neighbour departed whom ne'er more to see
Its pieces shared in bereavement, grief and misery