1. Asma came, drawing her cloak
Behind her as she walked the path

2. I wish you had stepped on my eyelids
Before they were startled awake

3. She lowered her veil to hide
Her smile in the morning light

4. By the tent's edge prowled battle lions
Circling their prey eternally

5. I feared her trailing cloak in the camp
Would rouse them to her scent

6. She appeared, startled as though
I had left, bidding her farewell

7. So she gathered in modesty from Nuzeem
And stuffed his verses in her cheeks

8. I cannot forget as she forgot
The companion telling me her news

9. A dove moans in the branches, longing
Confiding the secret it hides

10. The branch was a refuge for me
The dove sheltered its complaint

11. I rose to bid farewell, folding
My sorrow in her fiery passion

12. After her I saw no woman with
Finer adornment in the camp

13. Except Haifa who surpassed
The heights of eloquence

14. Her Bedouin vigor wanders
Far into the night bewildered

15. Thureeya strutted haughtily
Lofty over Al Jawza's summit

16. What is this vagrant king or Zuhair
To her spirited imagination

17. No tall predators more subtle
Or sweetly gentle than her

18. No garden bloomed with flowers
Faded in the drifting clouds

19. The pastures grew fertile there
Farthest reaches nourishing their youth

20. With better vitality, sweeter
And more delicious than her taste

21. She reminded me of days that called me
To longings that pierced my heart

22. No roes gracefully pacing
Could match her swaying gait

23. Caressing him by day with her gaze
At night she makes his shoulder her pillow

24. Yearning, tending to him
However far or near

25. Wandering with her to a trance
She set in the valley’s winding path

26. Not knowing that fickle fate
Would strike down her fortunes

27. In no time her camel was bound
And she was stripped bare

28. Spending the night as he savaged her
Tearing through the ropes in fury

29. More clever than your brother
Are the daughters of ardent desire

30. Laying siege to a heart torn open
That you pardon and overlook

31. The faults of her past
Offer greetings and well wishes