1. My friend, here is my attempt to translate this beautiful Arabic poem into English:
My companion, is there a moment’s rest I could borrow

2. That with the dreams of others I may be consoled?
Had she known the specter was with us,

3. She’d have envied, in her stinginess, that which could not harm her.
When the covers of sleep are lifted from her eyes,

4. Her face shines radiantly, so how gloomy could she be?
It’s not her poverty towards veils, but rather,

5. Her light turns you away, not her veils.
May the silk of Khusrawani be soft to her,

6. For it touches her own silk.
She is crescent-like in lineage and distance and years,

7. So you cannot reach her, except in your imagination.
The chambers of her tents are surrounded in darkness

8. As the orbits of the planets surround their stars.
When jewelry adorns women, it adorns

9. Their beauty and breasts.
And in my heart there is an infatuation for them

10. That straightens the bent ribs with its sigh.
They descended upon the garden of sorrow, so it smiled at them,

11. With the smiles of tender branches and their smiles.
The doors of buds opened their petals to us,

12. We observed the blueness of their eyes and their whiteness.
Do the branches of the pliant willow suit them?

13. Or match their beauty and waists?
O you whose eye's spring never dries up

14. And whose heart's embers never die down.
Whenever the thought of Hamda comes to mind,

15. My brain almost bursts out of my skull.
And I ask her to return my soul with her palm,

16. But did she ever return a soul that was borrowed before?
And I yearn to be close to her land, not for its mud bricks,

17. But because my heart is her captive wherever she traveled.
I weaned myself of my youthful passion,

18. Then it grew back and turned bitter.
I roamed the darkest nights in my prime,

19. With the morning star as my guide.
With a surplus like that of Marqal, as if

20. It were the capital of the most distinguished tribe.
She surpasses and excels each letter, as if

21. Her flowing was the custom of an archer's bow.
I imagine the horizons are manuscripts,

22. And the vestiges of the riding camel are their lines.
Their guidance in the darkness is from the state of right guidance,

23. A state whose sun shines and illuminates.
We wrote upon their necks and cheeks,

24. “Forbidden”, for any man to gaze upon except her prince.
Precious are his gifts, and there is no giver

25. Of the treasures of this pearl except their breasts.
His speech warns you of his might, just as

26. The lion's roar testifies to its ferocity.
The whites of his inner arms, and their purity, are for kissing kings,

27. While their backs are for valor.
If a kiss could erase palms, his palms would be erased

28. By the kisses of kings, and their backs laid bare.
She acknowledges his precedence in glory, for he

29. Surpasses the steeds of men in hisadvancement.
For the noblest part of a man is his heart,

30. And the noblest of those are their breasts when kissed.
He adorns them with necklaces of gifts, but if they incline

31. Away from gratitude, the necklace returns as a shackle.
And all people are small next to the Tayy,

32. And next to the prince, even the great are small.
Every noble steed trails behind

33. The flowing sea of his gifts.
Except that the face of glory is the Tayy, and its eye

34. Is their generosity, and its joy their light.
The first of them had Hatem, who was so long-lived,

35. Just as their last had Abu Zawad, who lived so long.
If the people of earth were compared to Hatem

36. In his generosity, his tribe would be better than them all.
If you doubt my words, then here are the gifts of his hands,

37. Where are their equals?
Except that the eminent and the glorious have a registry

38. That shines on the face of the prince in its lines.
There is no state whose crown does not shake

39. And whose throne does not quake with longing for him.
His name makes the platforms of pulpits vibrate

40. And captivates their dignified orators.
The noblest Arabs have in him a fortress

41. Whose towers overlook the plains that armies traverse.
The loftiest of them have the sharpness of tongues and spears

42. As their pillars, and slander and blows as their walls.
With the glory of Abu Zawad, the glory of the lowly rises

43. And his enemies are humiliated, their breaches blocked.
Whenever it is said during turmoil, “This is a savior,”

44. The warriors of enemies beget their cubs.
Before his body, the enemies flee at his name,

45. Like the roaring of the fierce lion terrifies gazelles.
The blood of heroes adorns his coat of mail

46. As the scent adorns the gown of a bride.
With his right hand he straightens the twisted antelope horns,

47. Making the short seem long between his hands.
Thus the lion frightens every back with his palm,

48. Flapping his wings, none dare come near.
They do not remind of swords but for others,

49. For without brave men, even swords are feeble.
He plunges into the blue of swords a precursor

50. Above all others in the fury of battle and its crossing.
A left hand when he turns, a right when he comes,

51. And if he blocks, he is the morning breeze and its returning.
The pebbles are pleased with him as a guardian, as if

52. The mouths of eagles were the mouths of their fledglings.
Something priceless is lost that none can recover,

53. And glorious lineages that do not last without him,
And armies are lost that have no commander,

54. In the face of calamity, or if matters come to you.
Except that you leap forth only to snatch

55. The treasuries of kings like a falcon.
So you returned lying in ambush for every virtue,

56. No rank except moves towards you as its fate.
How can glory evade one whose origin and cycles

57. Sprouted the suns of the sublime?
The glory of Tayy refused to accept a favor

58. From other than you, or share with other than you its criticism.
They are like preying wolves, none could feed others

59. Except what its elder hunted.
For each of them is a rank of glory

60. Proportionate to it, or a border it orbits.
So you meet them with immaculate generosity,

61. And you meet the poor with a glowing face.
Its streams overflow upon the barren heights,

62. And the water of its hands upon who visits it.
It treats its guests as if

63. The star Canopus came to it with the guest.
When the chest of the striving or exhausted is straitened,

64. Its plains and breasts have become spacious.
It is the lion, but its neighbor is safe from betrayal,

65. While lions are unsafe from those who seek refuge with it.
They compete in the glory of noble deeds, as if

66. They are brides, but their gifts are their dowries.
And you brought to life the dead of Tayy

67. With your remembrance before the resurrection, their own resurrection.
I see glory as a man, and Qahtan as its heart,