1. His aloofness pained me, so I decided to visit him or put an end to our friendship.
I blamed him for not remaining a constant companion.

2. My friends, do not disdain the torment of passion,
Or the lament of the sorrowful when misfortunes befall them.

3. What his eyes behold brings joy to his soul,
As does what his heart and body endure.

4. So the tether of his heart grew short, though
The touch of love inclines him and makes demands of him.

5. When a brother of yours is smitten with passion,
His every desire is focused on the beloved.

6. So turn away and leave him be; do not be
Like the mount of a restless traveler going in all directions.

7. The brother who, when you show him affection says "I have been brought up well"
And when you reproach him claims no one takes his side.

8. If you blame your friend for every misstep,
You will not find one you never reproach.

9. So live as a recluse or make peace with your brother,
For he commits a sin only once in a while.

10. If you have not tasted bitterness from grit in water,
You will be thirsty, for no man's drink is pure.

11. On a dark night whose children sleep
While their fathers tremble in fear.

12. I peered with it, as did my mount's eye,
At the delightful, glistening starts, until its braids appeared.

13. At water that you see the feathers of wildfowl flutter
When the hidden reptiles stir its pondweed.

14. Near to the direct route, remote from settlements,
The guide of night had me drink it, indefatigable.

15. The intimate friend of journeys does not wander lost,
Forgetting it so that his mind strays.

16. A firm-standing male oryx, as if his stubby horns
On a triangle gore from the long passage of time.

17. Jealous regarding his companions, no riffraff mixes with him,
No one hopes for intimates but them.

18. When he feeds for years, he tries his hand at a young female,
Sporting with her while his virility and desire increase.

19. He refuses his sons from his daughters,
With the branding iron, so their pedigree is undetectable.

20. He herded ripe dates for ninety nights
In an enclosure, while its meadows teemed at its sides.

21. When the heat declined and the ground was firm,
The summer blazed from a star rising in flames.

22. The birds of the anemones flew, and were clothed
In types of finery like the adornments of brides.

23. The stork warded them off the meadows, and the jujube bushes
Were stripped of the riches they hoarded in their purses.

24. The oryxes sought the shade; the herd’s produce wandered
Aimlessly through the summer, their leaders perplexed.

25. Until they were ailing, complaining with their eyes to the echo,
To the rainclouds, though they do not address them.

26. While upon the hillside he divided his time,
Debating whether to go to the early water-spring or wait for it.

27. When the face of evening appeared, and the night had announced it
With a face leading the water to its well,

28. He spent the night concealing them as the darkness enfolded them,
The mother of guidance attacking while he attacked her.

29. When she danced in the deep darkness of night, he gathered her
To a path like that of a shooting star careening onward.

30. Until she reached a tract of water in the pond,
Whose shores the terrors had encircled.

31. At it the young females cried out in joy,
As the sandgrouse cry out on a day of blazing heat.

32. He boldly approached, his eye roving,
While in the mosquito net was one watching over her.

33. A brother of brown, yellow, and gray partridges,
Wrestled with her while the reaper wrestled him in turn,

34. When she shrieked that she, she alone, possessed the echo—
The moan of the sick for the sick, responding to him,

35. As if she were an heiress bequeathed wealth
Whether a failure or successful man comes asking her hand.

36. She favors a mother of two daughters, bringing him wealth
Whether a failure or successful man comes asking her hand.

37. When he dangled in the enclosure, excited
By the birds he could catch, none escaping him,

38. He shot, and the arrow coursed over his belly
And side, so he buckled, and death his companion.

39. He encountered rocks that checked his advance,
And he found it settled, though bleak and desolate.

40. My companion feared death if I departed,
As if death would keep him company if he stayed.

41. So I said to him, “Iraq is your place of abode,
A tent, if its sides blow fierce winds upon you.”

42. Perhaps as you travel in the darkness,
You will meet a trusted brother whose merits will benefit you,

43. One of Qays of the tribe of ‘Aylan—they
Are springs of dew; their clouds pour down rain.

44. When the obstinate misguided one's ties are bound,
Their knots are cast to him, though he disdains them.

45. On a day of trial when the water skin bursts with him,
Or bursts on him, no drink will quench his burning thirst.

46. I set out with it on a camel surging ahead
While her rider kept pace though wearied and exhausted.

47. My guide through the meadows went astray,
Its stopping places unknown and its passes obscure.

48. To meet the clan of ‘Aylan—their deeds
Surpass all deeds as their riders surpass all riders.

49. Exterminators of the doomed, they split blindness with their swords
From falsehood until the seeker of truth sees clearly.

50. When they ride out on the Mashrafiyyah and Mina Plain,
You would think Marwan's riders beyond count.

51. What obstinate man, what tribe bellows
That their kinsmen do not mourn them when we make war?

52. Our steeds steadily penetrated Iraq
As if you were at Dhakwan's funeral and the keen woman wailed.

53. It included Saam going against Marwan, and beyond them jujubes
And terrors—like the swelling of the sea, its billows turbulent.

54. Through our swords, we let the daughters of Death
Loose upon them. We are the sons of kings; above us flutter their banners.

55. We have never ceased maintaining control over a city
Or a border whose fortress we fear might fall.

56. When an overbearing king scowls,
We march against him with swords, censuring him.

57. Whenever the enemy was roused by our wrath
And watched us in the open without watching us,

58. We would ride out against them openly with each soldier
In white, seeking blood, their blades like lightning.

59. An army that shakes the pebbles and meadows
In throngs, their piebald steeds red, their banners white.

60. We marched against them while the sun was still in her bedchamber,
Beholding us, dawn not yet having cast its robes.

61. With a blow whose taste is death to him who tastes it,
While he who flees for life meets his fate nonetheless.

62. As if sparks from the flint were above their heads
While our swords, like the night, rained falling stars.

63. We unleashed on them the sudden death. We
Are the sons of kings; above us flutter their banners.

64. Some they took captive, and as many
Lay slain, and a like number fled to the sea.

65. The neighing of Ar'ar covered the face of his sword,
And the ranks of archers blinked from its blows.

66. The earth, the desert is choked with him when he marches,
His pillar-like legs jostling the mountain crags.

67. As if his withers rise from the fray
Like Thamud and Sulum or Aj and its celestial bodies.

68. We left Kalb and Qahtan there, seeking
Refuge from slaughter perpetually stabbing them.

69. Our steeds made Damascus permissible when they stormed it,
And the deluded people of Hims met its disasters.

70. It attained Palestine, and its army
Fled from the deadly blows of death's swordsman.

71. Indeed we unleashed a raid upon Palmyra
For so does the cycle of evil show its disasters.

72. It returns to a soul that never swerves from guidance
As Thabit and his kin deviated from it.

73. Thabit invited the misguided Ibn Simak openly
And did not guide his sons by his experiences.

74. He summoned Sa'id, who was struck by misery
As sins were poured upon him like heavy rain.

75. The striving of Ibn Ahnam's son among them is wondrous,
As are ‘Uthman—time's wonders are indeed strange.

76. Yet from them came only noble souls, while
The dregs went to the dogs, their coffers empty.

77. At dawn we ordered them crucified,
And by evening Humaid was carving their crosses.

78. But Ibn Rauh sided with the faction—he
Let out a roar at us, and his sides shuddered.

79. At fertile Kufa we brought against them with our steeds
The vanguard of death—we are its marauding warriors.

80. We held funeral rites for this and that woman there,
Crying for weeping, each answering the others,

81. Widows and wives who seemed in their sorrow
Afflicted like the stricken, wailing old women.

82. They wept for the likes of Sinan, whom
Our pigeons struck down by our hands, so they mourned him.

83. When we were satisfied by slaying the Caliph among them,
And fate had accomplished all his affairs,

84. We crossed over to Dhakwan, wreaking havoc,
While Marwan bled from the wounds of our claws.

85. Preparing threshing floors and flails
For those whose scorpions crept toward us.

86. By morning Dhakwan was left like Thabit:
A rebel, so we sent death to discipline him.