1. The dawn light perpetually graced Rawħāʾ, so the tents
stood vacant while their dwellers went to my basin.

2. The garden of Makkah was left empty.
Its brushwood, its sand-dunes, and its twisted shrubs remained.

3. Pastures, untended, their haunts cannot be roamed.
Every dwelling-place strewn with dry herbage.

4. As though, after the spring had dragged its train behind,
no summer tails were left outspread for it.

5. My companions of loved ones turned from their vows.
With them the days reversed themselves. They turned about.

6. I said, when they bade farewell to Najd and its dwellers,
pledged their troth to exile and went far away:

7. "No voice is left save a dove's amongst their dwellings,
who sadly moans, and with her moaning troubles the heart:

8. water-drawers for him whose belly cleaves to his spine.
They've vanished, gone, those names - care and want."

9. I sigh for them, if they're recalled, as sighs for its tenders
a wounded camel-calf with cut hamstrings.

10. At my house an uncle of my soul lies dying
when I'm alone, and tears of the eyes spill over.

11. I forget my consolation but remember longing
as though, without them, battle raged inside me.

12. Pour me no wine-cup unless I see them
come strapping their mounts, with streaming bridles.

13. She winds the bare plain with her litter's wrappings
when with its poles she binds the banners round her neck.

14. How many a ruined camp there is, made brilliant,
amongst which are left only dry herbage and decay!

15. Ostriches walk about them in pairs or herds
as though they were a tribe inspirited by their riders.

16. My heart forgets not Laylā though she's forgotten
what bitter yearning meets the lover far from home.

17. Each day it has a care that asks fulfilment
from kings - but no request of it takes any heed.

18. Sa'd, my affairs have kept me from visiting you,
jostled by brooding cares and stringing rhymes.

19. In every shining pool of rainwater
a stallion churns unknown depths with his hooves.

20. On either side of it, because of its windings,
are whites that periodically veil and unveil.

21. Its smooth parts are nude, seared, and flinty.
The tamarisk and the wormwood branch upon it stand erect.

22. Ten after ten, up to twenty, the eye awaits.
A back one moment sinks and the next upheaves.

23. Of it only the tent-pegs and gear of night's travel remain
when it is folded, and the smooth stones and tent-ropes.

24. A she-goat bleats every time she bears twins.
Under the shade of his armpit her mate lies stretched at ease.

25. And seven sons of cowherds who tend it.
Today their only clothes are those that flap round their legs.

26. I made it hear some verses that I recited
till it responded, as daylight drew nearer.

27. When the Nūʿaymī's false coin was rejected
and he bit the seal of his counterfeit wares,

28. I said: "You're amazing, even if you're no augur.
Your friends are filled with wonder at your deed."

29. He hankers greedily for the chase if herons with trailing plumes
alight, though no booty's left that he can hunt.

30. If you have become a falcon without wings,
then carts and ruins bring you only shame.

31. God curse you! You never mounted a fine riding-camel.
Does Time ever favour one who twists and turns?

32. To Solomon it came to plunder. Plunder avoided,
right conduct followed - that is the difference.

33. It visits him for a moment, that man of reckoning,
the best of those you visited, a sultan of lineage.

34. Dazzling white, rain-washed, it will suffice us
among those sitting and among the riders when they mount.

35. Solomon has been blessed with it as his familiar;
as pilgrims bless the Holy House, so Arabs bless it.

36. On it you see a majesty born of his fatherhood
and aid from a hand that gives and takes at will.

37. Goodness appears in it when you look upon it,
As moisture appeared in the twisted fibres of the loofah-sponge.

38. In a swarm of Quraysh who gaze at it
pure musk and gold are brought to it and taken from it.

39. High is Solomon in an exalted and lofty dwelling.
Swords and spears and noble fathers has he.

40. Happy he who had rank among them and his station,
and used to drink the water that they drank!

41. They whose only religion was the sword - their rule
was might, and their days overcoming days.

42. The lives of a people will at times in their grasp
be lengthened, at others shortened when they show anger.

43. They who knot up the fates in a covenant
whose first fruits are barrenness and decay.

44. Whites like mourners and chiefs fluttering,
on whom descend ill-fortune and war's woes.

45. I say to him complaining of Time's injuries:
"In it there's frustration. Between its fangs are clefts."

46. No neighbors but Solomon and his household
can save from an enemy and from a time of blows."

47. When you meet Abū Ayyūb in an assembly
or campaigning with waving banners overhead,

48. you meet a sea's tide no launching of hosts
can shake, with those who launch on its coasts.

49. So drink at ease, follow his lead in all things,
for the repose of the noble is play.

50. Al-Hāshimī, son of Dāwūd, has succored us.
From him we look for no bounty or lineage.

51. He revived life for us until its freshness shook
and he drove troubles far away from us.

52. A lion in war who rouses it and quiets it,
and the like of his giving and granting is not seen.

53. Harsh and bitter - and daunting when we meet him -
smooth and easy the road to rulers and court.

54. Horsemen of fear and lofty pillars of a kingdom,
striking the causes of grief when it blazes up.

55. The pilgrims' cupbearer - good his father -
Quraysh knew well: to him belong the highest aims.

56. He brought Ḥunain swords and polished blades,
the forelocks' dishevelment bared by cruelty and force.

57. He shields God's Messenger from harm with his blood
till its ornament clothes him and the sword is bloodied.

58. Dāwūd was a buttress to take shelter by.
In ʿAlī is terror for enemies of right guidance.

59. With Ibn ʿAbbās bounty is accounted:
for him marks are chalked in religion's path.

60. Say to the boaster of Solomon and his household:
"Bah! A sapling of the valley is not like Lebanon."

61. Present your father for another of his offices.
Recognize a folk whose heads are lower than his.

62. Sons of kings who prayed facing our qibla -
all are kings whose crowned heads the turban clasps;

63. in whose blood the Prophet's blood is mingled
as fresh water mingles with the Pleiades.

64. Had a people been given kingship before them, they would rule
the sun of daytime and the full moon of nightfall - no lie!

65. God gave them what He gave none other;
so over foes of religion they are kings on horseback.

66. They do not look askance at wealth out of meanness
when the lowly look to their wealth with longing.

67. But for Solomon's immoderation and his portion
no seeker of bounty would know which pass to climb.

68. In his debt is the nearest kin, begging his favor,
when times worsen and the threadbare turns shameless.

69. How many a helpless orphan with downcast eyes
has none but the palms of the wealthy to fill!

70. His naked arm has adopted him, and so he has attained
the pasturage of another time knotted for him.

71. An ample portion undiminshed by meanness
when the virtuous have granted bounty and acted righteously!

72. O best of the generous, in fathers and in pride,
loyalty is yours, and yours is the seeker's portion!

73. Though I live on in abject clothes and misery,
with sons who bring no profit and have no food but roots -

74. to them, after their allotted shares, sustenance
is hard, for you never see men whose living's roots!"