1. To ravines they followed in the darkness of dusk,
With a racing she-camel, her reins slack,

2. They threaded through the trunks of withered trees at dawn,
And startled a man in al-Hajibiyya distraught.

3. Past them the she-camels marched, their driver urging them on,
There a refuge with weakened enclosures and decaying roofs.

4. When the days of plunder had passed, wholly gone,
They faced a perpetual gloom of destitution, bleak.

5. They refused the man of ill omen in al-Musabtirah,
Where the guide points, slowly leading on his mount.