1. Those, my inaccessible dwellings, enfold
A sin against God, hidden and overt.

2. “You left a friend in need,” you say. “You came
To us, forsaking an intimate cohort.”

3. When I forsake a friend for two or three,
Or equals like us, I have no fear or hurt.

4. Nor did I grudge a visit when called,
Or shun one who beckoned, fawning, alert.

5. I avoid a tribe, kin, land where dwells
A boor who froths at the mouth, fierce, curt.

6. When I heard the boor braying, the birds
In my head fluttered, wounded, distraught.

7. I did not wait for them to attack from behind,
A swarm of bees in the wadi’s covert.

8. Nor for archers to strike down my warriors.
I was not known for frailty or indolence.

9. So I dispatched a sharp, speedy scout
And said, “Shift camp, do not tarry or languish.”

10. I startled a fledgling’s guardian and men
With banners alarmed me, so I took flight.

11. I turned away lest my fledgling be seized
By a fox to its left, hostile and violent.

12. Of partridge chicks, downy, airborne,
That lure the tribe and extend the battle line,

13. I’m a dodger, a shirker, a deserter,
A coward who disappoints the plucky.

14. So I fled them lest death come for me
At Ghobar or Arafa, fattening the worms.

15. As though I see it – no escape its grip
Once it has bared its teeth and claws!

16. To another behind her and her cubs
She said, “Carrion to cleanse the feeble.”

17. Calamities on one of assemblies –
When they move off they stretch the robes.