1. The turns of fate, do they hope for their difficulties?
And ask about one whose tribe has made him grey,

2. And is there a cause for greyness after this?
For your wont, O hue of youth, is its wont.

3. We drank from the days a bitter cup,
Passed around by hands we do not refuse its sipping.

4. We reproach them though the blame is innate in them,
And who reproaches the patchwork has wearied of blaming it.

5. And they said fate's arrows go astray and hit true,
So how did we encounter them, O people prone to calamity?

6. The seed of life refused pearls to a resolute rival,
And he who suffers no misery milks it.

7. Yet noble souls succeed in impregnating bliss,
While feeble souls lose even its drippings.

8. Whenever the expanses of schemes narrowed,
I called upon Ibn Hamd, so he answered the call.

9. A brother to me, if my requests overwhelmed me,
He flung at me the objects of wishes, hitting them.

10. When the sublime grew obscure, not to be guided,
I knocked with him, not with dear friends, at its door.

11. With him the burden of intense sorrows lightened over me,
And he made its remoteness and estrangement desirable to me.

12. Eighty nights on the back of the she-camel, navigating them,
Two friends whom its darknesses clothe in their robes.

13. With the Kaaba's bright stars we take omens,
Whenever we see them, we await their setting.

14. We line up the hands of the Pleiades, then judge
Where in their necks the pointer directs them.

15. As if we are the channels' pipes, lined by them,
Teeth that have marched forth, marching their immuno-deficiency.

16. Like hungry wolves you saw them when need descended,
Smelling its dust when the wilderness dismounted.

17. Do not heal Ibn Layla's eye from the speck with Layla's eye,
Doubt makes the edges of its mounts unclear to it.

18. You see it abject between the crevices of its saddlebags,
Like bundled up patchwork they pressed over it its loads.

19. So we pass by some garments, critiquing them, and some tribes,
Barking our dogs through them.

20. And from some lightning we swoop down onto it, and from a gust
That reminds us of its days and its youth.

21. I yearn for the days of youth and a tribe,
That fluttered from me at dawn its ravens.

22. And from a house of loved ones we water its palm trees
With spring water or revive its sides.

23. And from a friendly rural caravan,
Entrusting us their tree branches and somberness.

24. And we remind it of longing until it pines
And stretches at the edges of pining its neck.

25. Whenever longing challenges our hearts one day,
We offer it our breaths and fervor.

26. And we tire of the canteens, such delight as if
We saw Iraq or alighted at its abodes.

27. We yearn for our homelands but what augments our travel
Hinders us − we did not count its reckoning.

28. And how many nights we spent enduring its horrors
And tore its gravel when the deluge roared.

29. Our cheeks' illumination peeled from its darkness,
Illumination of cheeks smeared with their kohl.

30. And a migrant who casts the sparks of its firewood
Onto the riders, our camels' shoes struck its flints.

31. When it tempted us after thirst with its water
And the sand dunes deceived us, it made its mirage disappoint us.

32. The companions craved flowers and the saliva was dry,
No saliva but the sun casts its spittle.

33. Until we stopped at the two stopping places, and
Mecca greeted us with its banners and plateaus.

34. We spent the night at a gathering and the camel halted,
Hoping we will find Mina and its pebbles.

35. And we circumambulated the Ancient House veiled,
Seeing by it our deeds and rewards.

36. And we visited the Messenger of God, then afterward
The graves of men whose afflictions we did not ask.

37. And we crossed by the sword of the sea and the sea roared
With its surges until we tread its shores.

38. Ordeals that make grey hairs conspicuous in every tribe,
And make one forget the days of youth and its playfulness.

39. May God lodge those who shared the stirring up
Of the camels' saddles, its organization and disarray,

40. And felt with their hands the fever of the path's ailments
Upon the camel litters' staves and patches.

41. May each magnifier cast them unto Baghdad
When he sees its walls and domes.

42. So how many calls did I send in time of distress
To Him, and patience was his long reply.