1. We are not to blame if our chests are narrow
At the first whom the guidance of 'Asim led astray,

2. Who wanted to take the path of difficulty, so he hastened
With his high hopes to remote dwellings in gloom.

3. How could the 'Anbari go astray in a land
From which amulets were cut off from him?

4. And had he been in other than the wilderness, you would have found him
Submissive with necks bent, like docile oryxes paired.

5. When you task a fosterer of a brood
To traverse the horizons of forbidden pastures by night,

6. He sees the night as a ghoul over him, though
The goat-hair tents did not task him with bold raids.

7. Shall we moan over a love lost, after the pebbles
Have been fired by the sun, and the saliva of the sun melted over turbans?

8. While we, with him of lofty stature who measures our thirst
Against pebbles, find in them perfectly portioned drafts.

9. So when we shared the medicine bag, the branches
Of the 'Anbari's myrrh tree thrust towards me.

10. And he came with a camel stallion the size of his head
To be watered from it between the saddle-cloths.

11. But the camel's hump was too narrow for the waterskins
When an 'Anbari, unmindful of the fast, hurled them.

12. And when I saw the 'Anbari like
Tattered foxes on a burial ground on the high plateau,

13. I girded my loins for him and jiggled a little semen
That would be tossed at the head of an errant slave with a price.

14. The echo of the belly plunges while his hearing is folded over
By the intense heat of a day whose noon is blazing.

15. And I said to him: Lift the skin from your eyes—your life
In this world is but the stench of dead cattle.

16. On the evening of the tribe's retreat, when there remained
Of them in the valleys only noble spirits.

17. I preferred him when I saw that which
I fear will befall the people—the ever-present fates.

18. I wished—had it been possible to buy—
To protect him, even were medicine's price atop heaps of ruinous sums,

19. At an hour when, had there been a Hatim
Among the tribe, his soul would have envied Hatim's munificence.

20. The owner of the goat-hair tent saw him who in his homeland
Would be cheap, even were a thousand podgy she-camels given for him.

21. Of the nannies which inherited dogs
And their paddocks—a dog with forelegs sawed short.

22. He upbraided me unless I were to help him. And had you seen
My paddocks with the goat-hair tents the day after pleasures!

23. You would have testified that he showed ingratitude
For my kindness—protection being absent—with the bite of reproach.

24. He would have known that I had poisoned his heart
With a drought of withered poison, turbid, squirming.

25. We were like the companions of Ibn Mammat when he watered
The thirsty brother of the tiger on a day of bold attacks,

26. So that when Ka'b said, “You have sated Ibn Qasit,”
He says to him, “Give me the remainder, O father of calamities!”

27. Thus was I like Ka'b, except that my death
Was delayed from me on that day among the ruins.

28. We set out while the spittle of the 'Anbari was as if
With the fangs of two hyenas on a carcass, cramming.

29. And I hoped for gratitude from him, were he to come
To those whom he knew in Hawir and marking the high ground.

30. But the 'Anbari wished abuse on me and forsook me,
Leaving me severe and sullen, open to contention.

31. Had he been from the villages he would not have rewarded
My generosity with the words of the base accuser.

32. When the A'shum of Gefer turn verdant and are loosed upon them
The breezes of blossoming spring, nimble,

33. Which of them, when you invite them two months away
Will they answer on a parchment inscribed with columns?

34. A tried and true tribe, not from 'Urayg, son of Jundab,
Nor from the quarter of Juhayd, father of plump she-camels.

35. You see every 'Anbari's dwelling is a simsim bush
Or an a'shum, its tent poles short.

36. Are you not my tribesmen? When the son of 'Amir wandered astray
You were led into the twisting torrents seething.

37. In the morning Mughra'a wept when
Fantasies of Mughra'a confused her in al-Hayran.

38. The Master does not slumber when the darkness of night
Enshrouds him in its thickening layers.

39. Cattle bed down when drowsiness covers their eyes—
Their likeness the young of porcupines paired.

40. And had they been the blond thrushes you would have found them
Guides with harsh, overwhelming mouths.

41. When the two sons of Mufadda meet, the noses
Of the sons of Ja'ra are soiled beneath the mustaches.

42. Ja'ra was only a foundling girl
Whose father we inherited from Tamim son of Darim.

43. When we gather they judge that the lowest price
Buys their necks, or else they are for sharing.

44. Squatters at the abodes of estrangement where you do not see
Them attend to grave affairs.

45. Ja'ra has not freed me, though she reject
A thousand who wish to break away.

46. With them my father charged me to keep close
And forbade that any wrongdoer mistreat them.

47. When the clan fold their heads in their turbans
Their villainy shows between the beard and turban’s hem.