1. Your passion was not stirred by swarthy maidens,
Nor by abodes where hearts were enraptured by them.

2. A house for the blonde who never ceases
Speaking of it, nor forgets it ever.

3. The smooth-necked one, embraced and enfolded,
Docile as a tamed she-camel in one's arms.

4. Your sister shot at the tribe of Lu'ayy, when she aimed,
Your arrow struck its mark whenever you shot it.

5. She reserved her affection for you alone,
While others' love for her was as naught.

6. I knew that darkness when I was heavily in debt,
And she came gently to meet me at night.

7. A fair one who steals the minds of men,
Huge of buttocks and slight of hips.

8. She was as pleasing to taste as ginger,
Grey-eyed, and enchanting when she smiled.

9. Oh passion, what ailed you when at daybreak
Their pack-saddles were visible to me?

10. They were like palm-trees crumpling in the valley,
Amidst their discarded refuse and droppings.

11. When the camels were surly with their driver
They made the last to start hurry to overtake them.

12. Among the trudging and weary ones, another
Stumbling when the stick was lifted against him.

13. Among the young ones, lively and playful,
Luxuriant pastures had nourished their youth.

14. Not the crowd of rabble, nor the son of a slave-girl
Whose shamelessness lays waste his neighbour's honour.

15. They climbed up Uthaydah Valley after
Maltreating the young she-camel and splitting her hooves.

16. A village where pregnancy swelled the udders
And whose roofs could be seen amidst the waste.

17. Your people from Dhatu Qatad pitched camp there,
Where are they in relation to your dwellings?

18. Whenever her image lingered in the heart,
Tears would flow abundantly from the eyes.

19. Will you not forget her for one with flowing hair,
Proud, when her litter is seen openly?

20. She crosses the stony ground when the desert is aflame,
Plaiting the fringes of the litter's canopy.

21. Wearing slippers for fear of the Jinn,
When the flies swarm noisily around her tent,

22. Her trousers gathered together at the joints, above them
Strangely deaf, closing off the place for her ritual prayer,

23. Her back was thumped when mounting, as if her seat
Were steps Solomon - Allah's prophet - built.

24. Her legs lead the succession of her limbs
In single file, her hoofs crushing the pebbles beneath them.

25. She cast her fetus down on the road
In an arid, barren plain, stripped bare.

26. Thus she spent the night swelling with pregnancy
Curled up in the encampment, wrapped in her garment.

27. Her resting place is scarce blessed,
Along with those born to her there.

28. Jet black twins, remainder of her brood,
She flung them vilely down to the ground.

29. Until the drowsiness left him,
And he had satisfied a need,

30. He bent his head to wrap a turban,
Unworn when he slept, around it.

31. Then he hastened to the tethering rope of his mount,
Like a young camel which strains against its nose-rein.

32. The plump waterskin rivaled him - as if it were
A goat whose udder the wild beasts had eaten away.

33. Until it despaired, and he squeezed its teat dry,
And it saw the remains of its milk gone.

34. It wriggled free, and a grey horse of excellent stock met it,
Neighing loud, and it shied away from it.

35. They raise the dust, covering each other white with it,
Weaving it anew as they race onward.

36. It billows up when they pass over high ground,
And subsides when they course over low ground.

37. The grey urged and raced up abreast of it,
Butting its shoulder, then wheeled around and left it.

38. On a morning where drizzling rain striped the hide of the valley,
Dotting it with the remnants of its moisture.

39. They travelled until the sun was high and hot,
And the time of day for drink was past.

40. Their hearts thought of the valley's pools in the dusk,
That would clear away the day's fatigue and anguish.

41. So he importuned her, and she resolved to yield to him,
Raising her tail's twin pendants, then pressing them close.

42. To a stallion whose spittle was thick with froth
To be swallowed by the sands where it fell.

43. They mingled by night, and when dawn broke
Were like two armies because of their loud cries.

44. Until the sun was bright and the noon heat intense,
And the time for drinking was gone.

45. Thirst tortured them, and he remembered
The waters he had frequented and loved before.

46. He called to her passionately, and a bay mare appeared,
With gashes on her flanks where she had been beaten.

47. So they drank their fill at a spring of turbid water
That frogs made muddy around its overflow.

48. Then fully watered they went on their way,
Happy that they had not missed that stop.