1. What ails an eye whose passion makes it weep
For a home whose glories time has buried deep,

2. Where windswept sands have blotted every mark
That linked those desolate ruins to its past,

3. And gales still follow, wildly in their sweep,
Chasing each trace that lingers to the last?

4. There the oryx walks never knowing fear,
Roaming free in wastelands bleak and bare

5. While nimble hunters watch with bows bent back
And arrows fixed to strike the prey they track.

6. A hunter aimed at a charging oryx wild
And loosed a shaft too feeble to hold fast.

7. It glanced aside, and cutting through his hand
Left his fingers bathed in blood as it passed.

8. Sullenly he bound his bleeding grip
While the antelope fled on with streaming mane.

9. Only this abandoned site and lonely plain
Echo now where builders raised walls high.

10. Sounding oft his desolate refrain.
Tamim's glory lit the past now dead

11. Woe to those who break faith or oppose instead!
From her sires it won fame that still remains

12. When her fierce horsemen charged with lance and sword.
Loath, we meet where once her warriors massed,

13. And our might is gone, our name disgraced.
But for fear of shame, reproachful words,

14. Or lest others pray bad luck may fall,
Or a lord denounce us, we would never bend

15. To meet where hostile hordes their ranks extend.
War we do not dread nor feel alarm

16. When we bare our blades and brandish arms.
We whose lineage springs from Khandif's loins

17. Were exalted to glory's highest plane.
First we were renowned for generous deeds.