1. Do the winds of dawn have news of a gazelle grazing,
Or is the rain's watering of the gardens of passion pleasing?

2. A sign for you from Umm al-Walid has come
The winds bear it and the clouds pour down.

3. As if the fragrance it diffused from its bedouin encampments
Was overflowing, as if lightning flashed from its clouds.

4. Passion which the days have tossed far away
Yet the signs and mention have brought near to you.

5. Descending upon passion, its image consoles you
Though losing the way, its name makes you forget caution.

6. It traveled east yearning, no eye was lost
In passionate love nor any trace or footstep.

7. The full moon complains of seeing it
And darkness clothes itself in visitors and thickens.

8. The full moon would not have inhabited the deserts
If it were not a crescent, nor mounted the night if it were not a moon.

9. A kindness to creation, if not for its sweetness
It would not have been blamed though it is faithful in passionate vigil.

10. Darkness stretched out a white hand before dawn
At daybreak, sorcery appeared from its predawn ink.

11. Among those raiding the steppe are signs
The heat seizes for it some urban youth.

12. Stories about her circulate while she departs
And hearing clings to what sight cannot cling to.

13. A brown woman attacked her, resembling her
In stature and color, protected by a reddish tent.

14. She is gentle in nature though her nature is coarse
As if in her body water were cast but her heart remained stone.

15. A happy Sa'diya claims that loyalty to her
Is an unsevered rope from the side of an eyebrow.

16. Yet what can she do while my heart is under her spell
And yearning tends it unjustly with no victor?

17. Umm Khayr did not deny when she was aloof
That my change of color was from dyeing, not real.

18. Dawn was faithful to passion since it was its ally—
Love is not shed until hair is shed.

19. I now see wishes reciting their night tales to me
While I have greeted old age seeking to deter me.

20. My first desires pull me
And the latter bid me follow restraint.

21. How honorable is determination but for the burden of its load,
How beautiful is silence but for their saying it is confinement.

22. How mighty is the youth in the shade of his chastity
If resolve were consulted or reason was sound.

23. You have no excellence in greed but the baseness of its humiliation
As fate does with sustenance what it desires.

24. Two natures in this world are difficult to marry
Not sought, though if you leave them, ease comes.

25. I am content in it with what expands my breast
Some thought my ambition small though it was great.

26. If I praise, it is pride with which I find no fault
And the experts' reports do not deny my accounts.

27. If in speech I exaggerate what does not lead me
Back to manliness, I apologize for what I say.

28. Tell of the Bani ‘Abd al-Rahim’s merit—they were few
In the world’s days though the early pages bear witness to what was transmitted of them, which histories and biographies did not recount.

29. Secluded, their reputations sufficed them,
Though absent from office, they sufficed and attended.

30. They are the peak of the pillar of this kingdom, spreading out
Its lofty branches, seeking the star though it did not decline.

31. They possessed the kinship of the world and its law
Such that people follow whatever they promulgate.

32. Events do not belittle them if they approach
Caprice, nor does good fortune make them domineering.

33. If you test their endurance or perception in prosperity or calamity,
They give thanks or endure.

34. They speak and the spokesmen walk humbly for them
They do not command nor are disobeyed if they command.

35. In the years of droughts they are called
And do to them what rain does.

36. The Euphrates ebbed and the clouds held back
Then flowed in the clouds, their hands squeezing them until they dripped.

37. If they placed their fingers atop their lofty mounts
On a day of tumult, their tips would turn green.

38. If distance has concealed them from you riding on,
You know them from their published works.

39. This Husayn is a life perpetuated for them
They were not the first dead with him as their namesake.

40. He prayed and his swiftness added to his fervor
A sanctuary pigeon, his step pressing on urbanely.

41. Like an arrow, he won fame when you release it
His parents did not grant him bow or cord.

42. An extract which overflowed in perfume from its clay
Wine is the sweetest thing pressed from it.

43. Ibn Layl will not lack his companion’s bow at nightfall
Due to the length of his journeying and his bone being refined by travel.

44. He raced into the waste with no shelter to take cover
Behind him and no early dew to guard him.

45. Need hurls him at the goal of dangers
Whether the salt is sweet to him or the bitterness is clear.

46. He senses or envisions any fading encampment
No hearing confirming it or sight.

47. He sees its heavens in the water and denies them
Due to the great difference of forms in his eye.

48. Until when the turns of fate wearied of his woes
And the fruits of his efforts were ripe to reap

49. He glimpsed the fire of his generosity, heralding
The cool of his livelihood where it raged,

50. He came to tap it until he reached settlements
Where it would relieve his soul’s anguish or diminish it.

51. While the houses and tents revolve around him
A new moon, and for settlements, a full moon is invoked.

52. Thus no quarter of merit was devoid of him inhabiting it—
Wealth to be divided, words to be hoarded.

53. The egg of the kingdom—he protected it and it did not crack
Since he buttressed it with opinion, which splits it.

54. They swore by his name until they became certain
That if he marched in other than an army, they would be granted victory.

55. The release of arrows loosed, his exertions comprehend
No month feared nor empty.

56. He deluded in honor until he achieved his goal
While the side of honor is delusion's ride.

57. If what he did were blamed, nothing could be weighed against it
Of deficiencies other than that he is human.

58. Praise suits him until he has no price
That would burden him, and until his wealth is scattered.

59. If a man gave himself one day as excess
He would not give life but as concise.

60. I spent my days in woe with you
Then well-being came, though in them is decline.

61. With my luck before your affection I had
A grudge, so I rose with you like an avenging sword.

62. May wonders always come to you from me
While in their lands they are squalor.

63. Ships sail accounts presenting to eyes
Phantoms all of them deceptions.

64. When analyzed, their meanings are their collars—
No freshness, or their words their pearl earrings.

65. Born from me, though opposing their office
Like my father, and her father, ancestry from Mudar.

66. Gladdening you and maddening those envious of you
While one people's gain is harm to other people.

67. With each new day bringing innovation
The winds and breezes drive them to you.

68. In their accounting is length though I have notjourneyed
And in them, falling short of what you deserve.

69. You have heard others' words as recompense
So how can patience be sweet for the bee's stinger?

70. And if words are similar and coincide, the rope’s strand
Is alike, a male serpent.