1. Her lustre faded after her prime, like a camel grown old,
In her eyelids languor and in her mind confusion.

2. In her breast a fire of cares blazes,
Its flames rise and sink if they rise.

3. Long has it seared her entrails and heartache,
Yet union is not granted her if union is granted.

4. To God belong camels, whatever their separation,
How sweet are the two lovemates if the camel is content!

5. Passion will rob us of our virginal days in the places
Where tents are pitched together and kinfolk gather.

6. Nights I will not decline to visit for a visitor,
Nor dissuade me from them blame or reproof.

7. A glance allured me, and a mere signaling
With a lid like a twistful collyrium brush.

8. One morning we met in thickets’ shadows,
While all the vales and meadows clustered about.

9. A gazelle sang, like a lovely gazelle, turning,
Her braids scented, her buttocks like sandhills.

10. Her cheeks the dawn, in her spittle wine,
In her eyelids sorcery and in her glances subtlety.

11. So she made us drunk till in our tipsiness
We danced, a lovely tripping in her tipsiness.

12. By my life, that day, were it not for a letter
Come from afar, which reached us sent by the spouse,

13. No messages would have come and gone ‘twixt us
For us to follow the news they carried, those messages.

14. I say to the camel, while the loved ones slumber
And midmost night is past and its mantle fallen:

15. “O camel, did you know what lies between me and you,
You would not have made a promise you did not fulfill.”

16. Said she, “You have given love and affection to others
And desired a place where you never set foot before.”

17. I said, “My heart is seared by its sorrows
And by the truth things are made clear.”

18. “Bonan's sons are marked by generosity and merit,
Pure piety, munificence, forbearance and justice.

19. In them are meanings from their forebears’ meanings,
Whose beholding exalts words and deeds.

20. They are the noblest of intimates in every gathering,
While others in glory are but a branch and they the trunk.

21. Gallant Hums, sheltering every guest,
Who fears no slip of his sandal.

22. No fault in them but that their neighbour
Upon a neighbour reflects no loss of position.

23. In their remoteness lies remoteness from good and piety,
In their closeness a bond, in their love a grace.

24. Their butts are well-bred and their visits enriching,
Their manners pleasant, and their presence enchanting.

25. Each of them in bounty is Hatem Tai
And each a full moon and each a paragon.

26. If they bend down they gratify all millions,
And their natures are sweet and openhandedness pleasing to them.

27. To their foes they are the quintessence of bitterness,
And fierce lions whose claws rend flesh.

28. They have followed the path of their father to glory,
No wonder if the cub resembles the lion!

29. They have none to contend with them on the day of battle,
Nor any peer in every dangerous venture.

30. Their talk heals every malady,
And makes you forget what the bees have sucked.

31. She said, “Cease explicitness in your speech!”
I said, “Let me be, truth makes its owner rise high.”

32. She said, “Do you not fear other men, who
Possess a jealousy from which the noblest are not exempt?”

33. I said, “Shall I fear people with the truth, after
My steed has taken the bit firmly between its teeth,

34. And my experience is consummate, and my separation ended,
And faith, reason and tradition have filled me?”

35. “Woe for my dear intimates whose company
Makes one forget family and native land!

36. My rivals in glory continue slandering,
In the unstable state of affairs, which is neither sweet nor pleasing,

37. Fortune throws them this way and that as they seek their state –
Some of that opposition showed ignorance.

38. Not like the sun in its splendour at daybreak,
Nor the sharp eye in the midst of kohl.

39. Does a palm tree grow but from its shoot?
Are palms planted but in their beds?

40. So the mantle of bounty still covers them integrally,
If disunity rends the mantle.

41. By the rank of their grandfather the Prophet,
To whom glory, bounty and grace attained their utmost,