1. Ruins of the hillock stirred you, the whirling sands,
Or was it those light gazelles, the delicate does?

2. Naught but the abodes incited this yearning -
Abodes of Salma in Al-'Aqiq’s desert whirls.

3. They lie neglected these five years gone,
Three passed, plus this year, four makes the fifth.

4. Naught remains of them but traces, as though
A horse had galloped his course round about them.

5. Dishevelled locks like the plumage of an ostrich,
With slave-girls to adorn them, singing black-eyes.

6. The bare interiors seem amidst their courtyards
Like the writ leaves the day they were seized.

7. Sanctuaries kissed by lips though prostrations long -
Those sanctuaries - and nooks where lovers once met.

8. Happy the days when in them was dalliance,
And our days amidst them, thronged with gentle girls.

9. At even the robes of love are new stitched,
And the mid-morn airs laden with ambergris scent.

10. Remembrance cannot snatch what is beyond reach
When the spying eyes have snatched it from your hand.

11. A wailing owl, whose outcry we learned through the nights,
Wings of darkness, the hush of feathers alighting.

12. When she blinked we knew not if 'neath us were
The trailing skirts of slumber or a demon's wings.

13. We reached, with her, the sea of noble descent,
Though from famine emaciated, skin and bones.

14. They came back sated, drinking beneath our steps,
Thirst of wastes and barrens and mirage-haunted vales.

15. A prince who wearied the panegyrist's verse -
For our reed-pens failed, and the paper sheets.

16. Choice soul, who encompassed the noble ideals
Of childhood, and manhood - peerless in both worlds.

17. His hands pour forth bounty, as if his fingers
Were clouds raining relief, in perpetual charity.

18. The palm of his hand is refreshed by his kindness
And everything it touches comes to life and greens.

19. If it touched withered wood, that wood would leaf
Though it were greying ashes and dead timber.

20. A generous man whose fame's aroma is hospitality,
And the atmosphere around me scents from his praise.

21. Easy of manner, refined, excellent, hospitable,
When the times greet us reproachfully and frown.

22. If he glimpsed a foe, he veiled his eyes,
As the sleepy veil their eyes when slumber calls.

23. The protector of the state, his justice a refuge,
For those the roving fortunes had wronged.

24. When some hoard kindness from men, no guardian
Stays their hands, not a soul of the House of Mirdas.

25. As if they were steeds atop plaited saddlebags
And lions over saddle-cloths, fangs bared.

26. When the knights unleash for battle, how excellent
Knights they are, and skilled, accomplished horsemen.

27. Due to their accord, against their enemy
They have wreaked such war and such harmony.

28. They guard each other - no doubt in them -
When doubts are dispelled by well-informed minds.

29. So the distinguished, in their endeavours, will lack
No fair fortune, no share of accomplishment.

30. God has clothed no man, despite his frame,
In pride like yours, sublimely adorned.