1. Alas! Why do you blame me undeservedly?
You have wronged me and pierced my veil.

2. If you do not stop rebuking me foolishly,
Your own soul will blame you in time.

3. It pleases you that fate remains
Set against me with its ills, night and day.

4. If you do not care for yourself or wealth,
Its loss will harm you through my long life.

5. Your own soul has lied to you, so lie to it,
Whether with stoicism or feigned patience.

6. For I was shamed when I stood pleading
And Muawiya ibn ‘Amr did not hear me.

7. I saw where he had been and turned aside,
What place to turn aside to, O son of Bakr!

8. To a barren waste of stones and brush
And branches of oleander, somber,

9. While the structure of the tombs there
Had wasted with the years and months.

10. Had you heard me, you would have come hastening,
Running swiftly or rushing to me.

11. With the firm step of one without fault,
When warriors don leopard skins.

12. Now you lie in a burrow serenely,
Inhabited by spirits of the wastes.

13. Many a night raid have you led
Like the creeping of a hyena at date stones.

14. And your death was hard for me, O son of ‘Amr!
I have no firmness or patience for it.