1. I wondered at our guide urging his camel on,
Bringing her to us slowly through the darkness of night,

2. To bring us close to the one whose meeting with us
Would be a beloved event and from a house to which we aspire to be united,

3. And if we knew the knowledge of what was ahead of us,
The guide would have turned back his riding camel and rode faster,

4. I would have said to him, “Turn it back, for beyond it
Lies for me the humiliation of a panting fox between two hills,

5. With crooked necks, their ropes held by their owners
Who would be veils for my eyes and heart,

6. Its young during two days: one day noisy
And the next like muddy torrents that have overflowed,

7. They say, “Visit Hadra and the ground beneath it,”
But how can one reach what is already severed?

8. And I, though it saddens me, am not
One who visits dust upon an effaced inscription,

9. And less painful than something lost when death takes it
Is to a man his friends who have masked themselves.

10. The son of Khinzīr says, “You cried and your eyes
Were not juicy for crying over a woman.”

11. And less petty to a man who is not weak
Is the mockery of the mocking backbiters,

12. And none has died in the land of Ibn Māragha like her,
Nor followed him, wandering wherever he wandered.