1. Longing awaits and embraces me,
And the promise - if I keep to it - will embrace me.

2. I long for Najd and its dwellers,
A longing that drags with it the camel-litter.

3. I have no patience, O critic, about Rasha,
My eyelids are with me, and the arrow-heads are with him.

4. If he divided me and divided his love,
His portion is a soul, mine is a body.

5. So his torment is sweet to his lover,
And his ugliness in his eyes is beauty.

6. O critic, were it not for him, the tears would not
Have flowed copiously from my eyelids.

7. And the prominent would not have lamented bitterly
Except for him, terrors and afflictions.

8. And his undertakings are like the sea with no trace
In it for one who swims or laws.

9. If a star traveled in it, it would remain confused -
No North or South.

10. A man's blood-money is a thousand, and there is no
Price for him if he travels through its regions.

11. A man is all of man whom anxieties have seized
And whom time has bitten.

12. If passion has left him, the ruins and remains
Will toy with him.

13. Not like the witless in stupidity -
Woe to him if a horned viper stings him!

14. Raising the faded litter is a well-bred libertine -
No journey or ships have burdened him.