1. Though my she-camel has not yearned for the loved ones,
Rest, O my heart, longing will not bring back what is gone.

2. You long though love is not mine but yours,
While parting this day is not for me but for you to bear.

3. All night she complained beneath my saddle as though
We were both, O she-camel, grieved and bereft.

4. She felt a fire burning in my heart so dawn found her
With it the ardour of passion had subsided.

5. I journey with lively lads of the tribe,
Who everywhere are tearful for the departed.

6. When the travelling band chirped, they sighed
At what they found after the halt, and were anguished.

7. It was for the lightning flashes of the beloved places that we grieved,
And if we passed by, it was with tears and lament.

8. My companions, the day we departed, moaned in unison,
Hearts melting at the sound, and eyes weeping.

9. No eyelid took leave dry of the abodes
Nor, after separation, did a tear dry up in them.

10. So tears are shed for the far-flung homes,
And hearts torn asunder for the home-folk.

11. I see despair until the soul determines endurance,
And the lover in me recalls so I aspire anew.

12. I recalled the preserve, haunt of the sand-grouse,
Panting as the thirsty do, and I returned.

13. But where are the preserves without them in their dwellings?
Where is an enclosure after the longing has gone?

14. Farewell to the ruins, not for offending them,
Though they be despair, when expectation is no more.

15. I asked you, has the cloak fallen from their dwellings?
Are there long necks and buds in the valley still?

16. Or has it, since their going, been overgrown
And the companions changed to solitude and desolation?

17. O heart, if consolation is lost, long have I known you
Crack after the departed. Now to patience I incline.

18. Yes, the feast of love came to me, recalled by
A land at Meetha, flashes at its ridges.

19. A waft like summer lightness stirred my heart,
Breathed by a scene of meadows, soft, lush.

20. I blush before my friends, yet my will
Is obedient to passion, obedient, pliant.

21. Today I glanced at the right ridge-line, a glance that
Turned my eyes back streaming, weeping.

22. How often a wild thing, a beauty in its vale,
On the necks of the look-outs gives and denies.

23. And I am gentle in love’s bargaining if she displays coyness,
Giving me of her conversation’s plenty, so I am content.

24. I woke for the Yemeni lightning a friend,
A consolation in his visit, fleeting, brilliant.

25. He approached like a Najdi, invoking memories so vivid
The preserve was ablaze with them, impassioned, drunk.

26. Will you help me in loneliness with a glance?
Then we weep for those nights and are anguished?

27. God forbid that you love as I love,
For longing would call you wherever you were.

28. There the fates saw me sleepless with ardour
And here my innermost soul agonized, torn apart.

29. I have no energy but to brace myself awhile,
No sleep but broken, troubled dozing.

30. Sheer cold turned from me malign, subduing its chill
While ardent longing regards not the drowsy cloak.

31. The nights have twisted you from a comrade who
In incompetence wraps himself, droops and trails.

32. He sleeps at the edge of the prayer-niche uncouthly,
Then rising from his pelting the pebbles, departs.

33. Oh would that I knew! Every home now lies broken.
Oh for a dwelling to unite and gather us!

34. Oh for solace to still the tears and so end!
Oh for a watering-place to slake the thirst and refresh!

35. But patience before the blows of fate and its pinches!
Does the abject camel complain of its load and submission?

36. I yielded my back to the departure of my vanquished,
So every leading rein has dragged me on in its train.

37. How often a rugged ascent has been ridden in humility,
A she-camel vigorous overnight, in the morning, led by the bridle.

38. Say to the nights that bear me: bear gently or hard,
For the bow of destiny holds no turning back now.