1. From the echo of tents, and mountain valleys crowded
With yawning chasms, and beasts prowling as guards

2. From the expanse of death, when its greed kindles
The worms' lust, and graves swarming with pilgrims

3. From its nights, when it touched Ali
On his wedding night, that it was an evil visitor

4. Or came as guide, intimating to his companions
That the victim was rightly guided

5. From rocks, their hides like swords
And their eyes' caves like hearths

6. Where the hills and winds have veins
Of snakes, and a forest of arms

7. And on the slope “Hunter” stretches
For the wretched, a wall of lions

8. It has a donkey's hoof yet appears
A woman who married a thousand demons

9. From riding dreams over every wasteland
That not even visions of a pioneer comprehended

10. And nights on the palms of ghosts
Biers, going and returning

11. From mighty feats, one tale after another
Felling the beast before a sitting hero could rise

12. From asking about Hejaz, answering
About costly clothing and stale hay

13. From quarrel between kin in the valley, and war on the hill between those remote
From the meadows' green folds warbling

14. Songs for the shepherdesses keeping watch
From the maze of delusions gathering

15. Disheveled visions and chaotic scenes
Between its walls, piles of tales

16. Of villages renewed and shrouds worn
And the charms of witches upon it

17. Like a belch its tombs vomited out
And upon its every glen and echo

18. Reptiles and toads call to each other
The village gathers its pieces, containing

19. Evenings of blustery snowstorms
And floods from the booming void

20. Rushing over it, bellies of tributaries
And song like a fluttering reed house

21. Where the fierce winds collaborated
And incense and poplar from ice

22. And a call: How prayer has benefits!
The gathering crams upon it

23. Shards from the bier of bygone years
They meet whenever the drum thunders

24. And smoke lifts the feast winds
And they recount how (Ibn Ulwan) flew

25. And what (Ali bin Zaid) told
Of the stars' orbit, a holiday

26. Of the mouth of the unknown or lightning promises
When the Pleiades drape the night a gown

27. Embroidering it, the clouds teeming
And when the west faces summer with winds

28. (Umm Qald) sells her children
And they return spinning

29. Worms of decay, veins of tombs
They depict the miracles of the mystic

30. Mustering jinn and darkness beholds
And virtues of a people praying at noon

31. And by night stealing mosques
And tales stretch on of bread-selling women

32. How much cunning is in their talk
Of the palace daughters dripping perfume

33. Like strings of roses, tender and plump
Their hair like shy dawn's trails

34. Its shadow upon their eyes a lover
All enticed them but the clay's wisdom in them declined assistance

35. And they repent, seeking refuge in God
For females are the source of vice

36. And they wish they could return to a time
When the produce of the land was copious and free

37. And they blame those who folded up provisions
So dire is the want of the suitor

38. And their evenings receded and converged
Just as visions disappear and recur

39. And they met on an old woman's night that waned
In her crevices, dormant stars

40. So they began their babble and repeated
What leftovers and addenda they began

41. And in their silence an old man appeared
Like a fluttering, wandering specter

42. And he told a tale in which
Every letter quivered like a resentful heart

43. And boasting of revenge was exalted in it
So the stagnant pools of habits raged

44. And they called.. Here we are, Uncle, come
We're all going, not one left behind!

45. It's an hour, they thought
Eyes jealous of you have been blinded

46. And their homes roared, catching
Blood, in the horizon's frozen features

47. And they yawned, yawning
A bird, its wings bound, numb

48. And at dawn the hillside asked about them
A stream, keeping dawn's vigil

49. And it saw him raving, stretching his arms
And beckoning her with the lashes of a worshipper

50. And he dove to inhale the scent of her steps
And suffered the sting of pebbles, persevering

51. And she approached so he clung to her morning draft
Wooing, grasping, importuning

52. Who came to him? A peasant girl, the sun combed her
Wearing the daybreak like necklaces over her

53. And a shirt of dew in which a season flowed,
The violets palpitating, a table

54. And she bent as a lily pillar bows
Inhaling news of the leader

55. And suddenly her steps stumbled
Upon clouds bursting from the echo's dust

56. What happened? She listens and runs
Dodging, her wailing defies him

57. And the wrecked village's lament hurtled
Like the rupture of icebergs

58. And she approached, who does she see? Her father
A trunk of wounds, frozen

59. And an old woman weeping alone and children
Like a ringdove's chicks weeping for their father

60. And a wounded man shrieking where are my hands
Where are my legs? I had none!

61. And his sisters gather the provisions
And give him their hearts as bandages

62. He throws himself upon them and they pour out
To make pillows for him of their chests

63. And the howl of agony in the plain echoes
The spiteful are gone but spite remains

64. Folly of follies that hatred becomes
A heritage, or is sanctioned as doctrine

65. And in the wake of those who left, the evenings returned to live
By the principles and foundations

66. And boast: they wanted our little ones
And we killed thirty of their fine youth

67. And they repeat what they have repeated through ages
From the echo of tents, and mountain valleys crowded