1. Were it not for yearning and yearning is an excuse
My saddle bags would have flown from you, O barren ruins

2. And I would have traveled urgent journeys as if their brightness
Were date palms waving by Al-Qallam

3. Leaving an abode whose people are made low by humiliation
And no abode has honor if not peopled

4. I bore what pained my ears and what saddened my eyes
My hearing and sight conveying to me what I dislike

5. I spent my nights sleepless, hot from the burning anguish
Of the insomniac nights with their burdensome length

6. I was wakeful though those I hoped for were not alarmed
For my day when affairs turned against me

7. He stayed at the abode of estrangement and bitterness
Scheming against me and conspiring

8. He warded me off from the bow of the foe saying
I am before you though I am rising against you from behind

9. And I have a way to change abodes
That would make me do what the fates dictate to me

10. I say tomorrow but evil is nearer than tomorrow
The wrong refused to stay cooped up in your settlement

11. You are not a watcher and others have departed
Your provisions are depleted and your saddlebags barren

12. If I have no helper from my tribe
Then I have from the hand of God though helpers fail

13. And I—if they are few—hold fast to them
As the jerking leg holds fast to the stirrup

14. Some of the man's allies jab his pride
As did the debauched gambler with the wine flask

15. Didn’t the ally of Zubraqan used to be fickle
A faultfinder with the two sons of Akhmas and a stabber

16. Didn’t the neighbors eat up Qais ibn Asim
And the neighbor of Al-Hudhaifi Al-Judhami a stabber

17. Wasn’t there for Sumawal an excuse
And he who seeks an excuse finds excuses

18. But he listened to the words of the blamer
And did his duty, heedless of the words of the excuser

19. So do not be fooled today by the smiling mouth of Ibn Hurrah
Who smiles at enemies though his breast is seething

20. He complains of people, his heart weeps and his tongue
Though eyes conceal from you their tears

21. His boon companions have entrusted him until his swords
And his aides until his dear life

22. You have only been like the pregnant woman
Who longed for a son though the wedding was barren

23. Can the pitch dark night benefit the visitors to dwellings
When the man's generosity is absent though provisions are present?

24. The noble youth succeeds through praise though his wealth is diminished
While pursuits of abundant men are blamed

25. Had it been for Abu Al-Awwam he would have protected me
When the living do not rage though the cauldron boils

26. And he would have straightened for me without me a spear as though it were
To the stabbing a fang that strips armor of its links

27. When the tribe was attacked treacherously in the night
He turned on them the point of his sharp piercing spear

28. Like a lion of the thicket, nothing escaped his fangs
Of prey, whenever his claws reached it

29. But the young man refuses though the sword smashes his nose
And among people there is one patient with the sword

30. Had it been for Abul Al-Ghadaq I would have risked it
To draw the sword of the youngcamel upon them like the morning draught

31. On the day it is called to the feared appointed time
They turn away the chests of warriors rusted by chainmail

32. As if an early rain at Nata and Khaibar
Among them a clear speaker and among them a helper

33. I am only a morsel for their saddlebags
With a mouth unless God protects me, defenseless

34. Had it not been for Abu Al-Awwam they would not have ruled supreme
Over the people unless cataclysms occurred

35. Nor would they have raised between Ghawir and Hajir
Their abodes as long as there was for skulls a cleaver

36. I repelled from my people the surplus of my collection
And I am able to do what displeases my people

37. I wish to make peace with the necks of my tribe
So a caller calls and one estranged returns

38. A smooth-talking liar reviled me and told me:
"To make you lose heart I will come early one of two mornings

39. Dropping by while asleep or stopping while weakened
Resembling the racers on the day of the race

40. Stop O Amr, you are stumbling
And neglect it pastured in his responsibility

41. He saw it on its infirmities, its back was hard
It descended as it danced and took precautions

42. So he shied away, scared of its threats
And the adventurous falcon swooped down on it

43. He saw his sword in it so he bit his fingers
But no! O Abul Ghalad I would have taken risks

44. To bare the sword on the young she-camel amidst the tribe, forbidden to them
Were it not for the intimidating rumors

45. It resembled the racers in the arena of glory
Thoughts less than attaining glory and breakers

46. He neglected it as a pasture in his custody
A time he claimed forgetfulness though remembering

47. He saw it on its she-camels, their backs sturdy
Descending as it danced and took precautions

48. So he shied away from it, scared of its threats
And the adventurous Shuhshuh swooped down on it

49. It leapt while threats rode its neck
Threats of less than attainment and breakers

50. And I—if I remain—will fill your honor
With the defects of sublime horses ridden by critics

51. The camel-litters of the riders of darkness when they alight
From travel—with them the most precious Lares are borne

52. Calamities for those whom a straying chest jabs
While inattentive, and those it misses while vigilant

53. Shameless towards the honors of men, blemishing them
As the crawling of the dung beetle blemishes

54. A bag of evil—how vile is its Lord's choice
When emptied at returning the burdens are apparent

55. We bite you but God splits open your cause
And peoples do not mend what God has broken

56. I yearned for my people as the captive yearns
For water, though his tether allows little range

57. Remembering the rain pools on the plateau enveloped
By clouds at the edges of the valley showering down

58. There crept upon him there a scorpion night
With a questioner in every valley and train

59. At the foot of a meadow as if its droplets
Were tears of maidens the boulders made flow

60. He sleeps by the water whose shadows
Are canopies, and Kina and Hayyan ridges

61. They hold the breadths of earth East and West
Great towers they build the heights and fortresses

62. They turned a mill with plummets whose wheat
Was the breasts of plains and outstanding heads

63. They revived me after the wave surge had tossed me
And the deep abyss made me roll

64. And they extended my hand after my bed
Had been dragged on the ground, dragged by critics

65. Face its evil, for today bares its injury
A gaping wound from the stab of the swinging blade

66. Naught but degradation is other than the man's home
And naught but betrayers other than the man's people

67. And I emptied from my heart a place for thoughts of them
As the ruined encampment is remembered and settlements forgotten