1. He passed by the dwellings of friends
And erased them as lines of a book were erased

2. And pitched his tent in the land for the lovely one and said to it
O land, your Lord has set out towards the lovely one

3. For long there encamped in your countryside a beauty
Like the full moon among the beauties of sand dunes

4. Had it not been for its pillows being torment, my skin would not have fallen in love
Nor would love have deceived me with its torment

5. She blamed the distance to the dwelling, and how could I
If that blame had gone with pleading?

6. Do not blame the stranger man for intending
The blame belongs to the slanderous spying crow

7. Ask forgiveness for what you have harvested while the love
For the encampment has confounded me and my riding camel

8. The day I saw my equal and asked for a glance
It would not have harmed you had you reciprocated

9. O you, do not think I would give
You my blood that is owed the day I am called to account

10. And I have been emaciated so that from my body’s slenderness
It can hardly make out your delicate complexion

11. Hello and welcome to the imagination for it
Gives life and relieves what I have

12. And I complained to it of the torment of love in my mind
A fire, so it cooled it with the frosting of a mirage

13. And of Taneufah where the flock of ostriches was as though
In it were vessels amidst the seas of mirage

14. And of Dawiyah an arid desert whose expanses I have traversed
With a mother camel who bends over her pouch

15. Neglectful of her two cubs so that the intentions of a dishevelled
Could find no response for the separated one

16. She complained of nightfall while my custom is not
To complain of what she complains of night and day

17. Until you convey unto the chief for he
Is the countryside of the camel drivers and the student’s dwelling

18. He who adapted wilderness since his youth so that his heart
Forever inclines towards that wilderness

19. He is feared and hoped in so that every evening
He never lacks some nourishment and requital

20. A man of determination whom every villainy
Leaps away from before his frowning face

21. Riders plunge into breasts and their plunging
Leaves footsteps for more footsteps

22. When in straits, swords shine while his heart
Is like the angry sword, disdainful of sheathing

23. A sovereign whose ranks are the greatest ranks
And whose influence in glory is the best influence

24. Ornament of knights and carousers, a decoration
Returning while the ornament of drinking sessions

25. And he has built for glory, a house of noble deeds
Lacking no excellence or freely given favour

26. A house supported for him by the Owner of Majesty,
Dispensing for him pillars and ropes

27. Therein you find every evening the fish
Like spheres of lightning as if spellbound

28. Knowing no ugly deed nor sees anyone
As having a way to find fault with him

29. A gracious sovereign so it is incumbent
I should not see any spite in loving him

30. Yet I pen praise gilded for him
Remaining over years and epochs

31. Praise like the meadow whose breeze blows fragrance
And which wards off what is feared with mere buzzing insects

32. Every door to manliness had been shut
You opened the bolt of that door

33. And you repelled the flow of Time and its guiles
From us and defended us from reckonings

34. Live for the Age and its people in ease
Hidden from its events by a curtain

35. For you are the noblest lord in a populated land
Tented, and most openhanded in reward