1. O you who saw the lightning flash on the she-camels,
Folding up the carpet of the dark gloom,

2. Reddening from it the palms in the darkness,
Splashing the wounds of the chestnut horse.

3. The women of the tribe set it aflame,
A fire not sparked from tinder.

4. The watchman lingered over it brooding,
Though he had given the alarm to the accused land.

5. Until dawn cast in a night
That had wrapped the waistcloth on a sacred man.

6. Their ululation could not be forbidden
The dripping of the valley and the slopes of Sumi.

7. They turned the fires of passion violently upon my heart
Punishing the heart though it was not guilty.

8. My Lord, with your glances a weeping
Everlasting, and a heart enamored with you.

9. The critic cannot weary in his love for them
The arrow has gone with the heart of the archer.

10. My eyes in wakefulness are enamored with them
While the eyes of one who tosses in sleep are closed.

11. Were it not for the order of religion, their necks
Would not have bent to the straightest laws.

12. Nor would we have seen the dim star
From the striker of hooves and the blinker.

13. He changes for glory when it changes.
He was jealous for the dynasty and the booty.

14. The sheaths are not borne by one whose swords
Have not ceased to be in sheaths of blood.

15. For God slippers smoothed in the heights
Scuffing the heels of the arrogant tyrant.

16. He wishes he could be in the morning saddle-girths
For the stallion of the greatest king.

17. More impetuous than an impetuous colt raised in the heights
And more eloquent in strange generosity.

18. They built on the turbulence of the spearshaft
A glory's structure that cannot be razed.

19. Their fires are kindled by the flint
For the night visitor, and it did not wrong.

20. Guests are not turned away among them to
A host of supplies and darkened settlements.

21. People's eyes turned away from attaining them
So they took precautions against the eyes of the stars.

22. Lionesses whom a lion sires in the heights
To the likes of them it lays claim.

23. Thus the white comes out from Dhaygham
And Dhaygham comes out from the white.

24. It was named Red Land in their time
From the length of the train of blood.

25. Every green thing from it turns red
As if there were no vegetation but chamomile.

26. Every young man whose temples are bared
A face radiant, smooth-cheeked and harelipped.

27. Dazzling to humans in his brocade is a figure
Like the embroidery of striped Yemeni cloth.

28. A people whose tethering of horses in their abodes
Is like dogs' in sheaths or charging forth.

29. From every interwoven coat of mail a swordblade
Well-honed, cutting the joints of mail, as if

30. It looks on the watch for a mange-racked camel
Standing on scarred ground.

31. When will I see them like predatory wolves
Inciting the terrified with attack?

32. The she-camels of the horsemen, their hilltops
Fleet, not stabled or hobbled.

33. From a knight bearing the lions of battle
To the place of encounter, dreadful the days.

34. Their icy mountains cast from their goblets
The fire of turmoil with flaming sparks.

35. A rooster who has muddied the water of life
In his vessels with the darkest spleen.

36. A day the spearpoint wishes it were
Additional on the spearshaft from the wrist.

37. How few impregnable fortresses whose height
Can be scaled only with the most tenacious ladder.

38. The horses have come to them as guests
To the knowing camel-herd and old fox.

39. Plots have undermined them, though hands plotted
And were not paralyzed.

40. What remains of their camel-herds' vigor
Remains of the jaws of the devourer.

41. Judgement fails with the drawn-out bleeding
And the abundant flow from the streaming wound.

42. He went to the time of decision, and perhaps
He made the turmoil clear and the booty for the one who withdraws.

43. The heel of the spear surrenders belated
And the feet plant themselves boldly.

44. It was not boldness, but only
The haste of the camels upon Dhaygham.

45. He turned away and behind him came the prattling
Of one awake to the babbling of tongues in the night.

46. Trust no more, after the vigor of youth fades,
How many a hurler with the maimed elbow!

47. The eagle itself may perish, though in its plumage
Is the aid of glory running with the arrows.

48. Wealth bears fruit, but wealth refuses
Except from the fading and the palm with few clusters.

49. Dhaygham does not hoard from his food
What ants hoard from their nourishment.

50. Do not consult others regarding her diseased state
The sickness has reached the tendons.

51. Seek the heights with your sword and take
For you have filled up with pain.

52. Your sword is victory, so be resolute with it.
Your breastplate is fortune, so be reconciled to it.

53. Nothing improves people for their lords
Except the whiteness of the sword and the coins.

54. O you who clothe me in delights that have flowered
Again and again, and been greatest,

55. You who originate me from a lofty ancestry
That plucks at the trunk of the unbreakable palm tree,

56. Divesting me of the heights is like clothing them,
While the booty, for one infatuated, is like the infatuated.

57. I disdain it, and by it, once,
Both are the same to me from the favors.

58. How can one sleep underneath it
While fate is restless, the palms unquiet?

59. Between the straps of his slipper, a thorn—
If he presses his step on it, it wounds my blood.

60. By it control my honor and free
My neck, and the honor of the free is for the benefactor.

61. Impel by it whatever of life remains for me
The purity of my heart and the clarity of my mouth.

62. Your rescuing from it, O rescuer of mankind,
For the burden has grown heavy on the old man.

63. Protect by it my honor and my face together
As you protected them in ages past.

64. Suppose not that in my daring
I held back until my resolve was too narrow for me.

65. My column has never bent in another's hand a day,
Nor has shame overwhelmed my dictionary.

66. Graciously grant that a man may say
The aspirations of glory have not been realized.

67. The taste of the gallant is deceived by sweetness
And perhaps declines into gumminess.

68. Mighty matters have I called out from whose heaviness
I summoned the towering, sublimely-aspiring hero.

69. Your habits of generosity—the like of them—
Time has made slippery thereby, so be generous!

70. Rule by it, join by it, pardon by it, grant by it, avenge by it,
Flee by it, blood-spill by it, rise up by it, spring by it, make safe by it.