1. I tame the valley or whiten dusk,
Or a phantom of darkness on remote exile knocks.

2. He came in his estrangement, did not celebrate,
Neither did the land frown nor did the roads go astray.

3. A treacherous she-camel carries him
From the towns thanking a thank you from one truthful.

4. So I walk sleeping shaken
By the arrogance of what waded to me and ripped.

5. Sipping his dust I know him
Without it from what he gained of fragrance.

6. And the caravan was distracted from our affair
The day palms intoxicated me that I could not endure.

7. And the watcher of his betrayal from his betrayal
Had not the phantom of the specter blamed wakefulness.

8. He called upon branches in wadis abodes
The breeze obeyed twisting and parting.

9. Are those sweeter or writhing bundles
A complaint on the embers of passion and embrace?

10. And of a canal whose glance worked it
And the spear was loved if it darkened and knocked.

11. Water the deer drinks of its attributes
Yellow if the one who stole from it returned.

12. The full moons and her crescent face completed
What was not complete with it nor blurred.

13. I left a folk of Najd's environs and passion
That passion and my burning those burnings.

14. So say to whoever thought distance is solace
No taste of a thing not tasted mellows.

15. Oh for a heart my ribs split from
From the fever wresting the twilight glow.

16. Yearning in it flared so it shook and leapt
Looking then descended then sped.

17. I solicit it but no kindred in sanctuaries
While the throngs are pilgrims recognizing daybreak.

18. By God a life clinging to the fever
Its ropes in the hands of the life-severing calamity.

19. I accompanied it a traveling company
Had the insistent guide given respite or mercy.

20. Days I have of youth an oasis
Its branches entwined verdant of foliage.

21. And for my distracted self dripping from waters of youth
The savior's condition neither debauchery nor difference.

22. When the deer bolted from an archer
Crowding my ropes and milling.

23. So today I will only return defeated
The sanctuary's fold doubled in foliage.

24. They said the gray hair is a new garment
Take the new and return my nature to me.

25. I paid my lifetime usury so its events
Took from me what I deserved.

26. How much did I mount its back and my spurs
Change it from steed to mule.

27. I raced it galloping toward my goals
And deceitfully so I would win the race.

28. Yet its steps with me remained short
And my skin until I accepted the yoke.

29. It said you despaired so you sat idly
While sustenance in another aims and knocks.

30. Sheltering in a measly livelihood
Which fate did not ripen nor cook.

31. You befriend a house in barren Iraq
Missing meat and the cooking pot boiling.

32. Other houses than it sealed off the air
Upon the mount or upon the ground spread.

33. A vacant house is loved to be demolished
Either from the heights or a frivolous heart separated.

34. Two eye sockets where are you from them
They are the soil and you the horizon's whiteness.

35. Regard me what equitable case
If one deprived were granted bounty.

36. Have you not seen bounty and its gathering
In a homeland and fortune rarely conjoins.

37. The Bedouin is a blanket covering it
And the peasant articulate and brilliant.

38. Who do I have in the market of the excellent to be bought
My dream in it with the splendor of scattering.

39. And I have focused my capacity
If only the reasonable fate would unleash.

40. And poetry I made barren so it is fruitless
Or hypocritical would that my poetry spent.

41. I disciplined it free for a people who were unjust
With its possession so it did not remain until I perished.

42. So if I wanted it for its like
It refused me fearing them and was obstinate.

43. And it disobeyed me politically for a time
Will it then be seen forgiving in praising the markets?

44. If each listener were like the prince
Its glory would not be detained nor tied.

45. And if Sa'd al-Dawla busied it
Since he walked whatever he walked in disjointed praise.

46. They were confused what confused them and pleased him
He certainly stumbled and the matter did not speak.

47. He met a peer and saw a tax
So the sword slipped to it and slid.

48. And he passed craving the attributes not
Controllable an onrush or neck.

49. Good tidings came to him so he smelled them
A scent and for generosity winds blow and sniff.

50. O rider a floating raft carries you
A mirage not of a garden nor tear.

51. Black of its clothes and skin
And its body white bare gleaming.

52. The sea suckled and raised it and it does not
Fear for that any harm from drowning.

53. If the mounts hurt from an echo
Five and ten hurt from daybreak.

54. It is challenged with firmness not of its passions
And a melody did not inspire it nor split it.

55. It rides the winds' madness as if deceived
And it has none but plunge in its intentions.

56. Communicate when you reach it
The setters of the encampment and the supplies of the launched.

57. And a moon rising in its heavens
And its light in the horizons kindling.

58. And say however the dew desired for Khalid
Words no guile and no patches.

59. O best of those who pitched at his gates
The she-camel litters and needs of mercy.

60. And those who came to him like ropes ceaselessly
And returned like banners beneath banners.

61. Had it not been for generosity and passion for dew
You would not have knocked seeking scattered money.

62. And you would not have witnessed today his pot boiling
Had not the water of requital ignited in it and burned.

63. Inks have spread over its lines
Born between stars and the Pleiades.

64. They carry whoever talks big in the sea of dew
Until he sees the wave fold over him.

65. As if he concludes pleasure through death
Or cures anguish by leaving his soul.

66. A silent battalion but for battle cries
Or a youth shrieked so collapsed.

67. You have not before you seen a tear led by
A lion of evil upon them the shreds swarmed.

68. When its roar covered the smooth terrain
The ribs of Basra from it would pound.

69. Your raised banner ahead of them
Did not lower nor did it fall since erected.

70. As if it saw the livers of enemies
So the fluttering hearts fluttered and beat.

71. They have tried your plot yesterday and that
Of tomorrow is more miserable for them and tears.

72. O horseman of the paper and sword indeed
You gathered one of two disparate halves.

73. Until some said a critic with a pen
Or writer with a spear on parchment tearing.

74. You knew yourself what they did not know
So you nimbly rose where you deserve.

75. How they were amazed by you while you climbed
And expected slipping and sliding from you.

76. And they whispered to you enviously with eyes
The squint and blue did not heed.

77. Until you left the star in its greenery
Boasting that you preceded and caught up.

78. For money if you do not wrap in its feathers
And do not groom in hand nor throw.

79. You spent it in charity so it is scattered
In the land until none of it you spent.

80. And the pool exhausts the edge of a lip
Then a lip though it rose and deepened.

81. A young man's abundance what he willed of his discourse
And glory not in bloom or foliage.

82. Do you have affection on the benevolence of passion
Pure over the cheating of affection and thin?

83. And a companion as you stipulated a companion
Most loyal however you stated taste?

84. Who measures your righteousness in bushels
Even if you break without excuse he does not blame.

85. Clean of bearing close to him a flock
Endearing of multiplying guarded of speech.

86. He does not drink wine lest it intoxicates him
But to pull it for fine manners’ sake.

87. A sword when you knew its worth
It saw with the necks of your enemies and split.

88. There reached him from you talk of dew
And glory pouring to him and dripping.

89. So it drew them virgins you did not ask for
And how many proposals boiled for them and were not drawn.

90. Precious of womb safeguarded its secret
From men noble not to be robbed.

91. If she sensed good she remained or saw
Injustice she allowed her ruling to escape.

92. The contract and divorce are the husband’s but in
Her hands a husband confirmed or divorced.

93. Feminine she counts the breath of her witchery
Talk of a crafty jinn who steals.

94. Present you think her unsettled
The cycles of occultation wandered so lightning cracked.

95. Birth delayed her but in rank
In poetry precedence is more rightful for her.

96. If you matched her glory with the stalwarts
You would judge the early arrived was arrived at.

97. So draw her from the mouth of a narrator who saw
In striving her for you an age and people.

98. Who pitied disabling while she prides
Your prominence from her and the lover has pity.

99. So thank him for what her right hand carried
Of it and how he picked and climbed in it.

100. And know for her birthplace its inauguration
In praise a door to you shut off others.

101. And reward him remaining in his affection
Surrendered whatever the dawn separated.

102. And do not justify listening to another
Those are merely false trails.