1. If you drew ruins of a loved one
As if engraved by an Indian chisel

2. I passed three years changing them
Misfortune rebuilt in the house's courtyard

3. You let your tears flow over the throat out of agony
Until it became rejected and prohibited

4. Yes, the ruins of a house that stirred sorrow
For us, can anything remain hidden after separation?

5. I stood asking them about the people of Muḍayyah
And where are the whisperers of the house's courtyards?

6. Would the drawing of a ruin respond to me
That time has made it wither so it is erased?

7. And a line of dots extending like the letter 'thaa'
Over dried-up autumn, struck by hot winds

8. Disheveled, with a cleft forehead
Branded by burning irons

9. I continued to fold my arms fearing for my liver
And my burdens are bullets shot through my tears

10. Where is Muḍayyah that I complained of
Out of excessive love for her held in my heart?

11. I did not forget to ask my friends about Muḍayyah
And they are all saddened, worried breaths

12. One said you missed her on the slopes of Ma‘qilah
Another said you did not throw, though the rope is cut

13. Smooth-necked, slender-waisted, splitting
Her breast with the slenderness of a tender branch

14. Like an elegant gazelle, with the gaze of a doe
She is matched by no bull or oryx

15. I did not forget the pleasures of our unending love
And if blame and fault double towards her

16. She turns away with the radiance of a bright sunset
As if a pearl threaded on a string

17. She has a forehead like the full moon completed
With fifteen nights and the branch’s darkness remains

18. And eyebrows like a Turkish bow, inside them
Arrows that pierce the hearts of lions, poisoned

19. Dark-lipped, bright-faced, smooth-cheeked
Revealing a long neck, thick with youth

20. Her figure is gently curving, her walk
Scented with perfumed incense

21. A land like the hollow of a shield, desolate
Where jinn are greeted in the nights with singing

22. I crossed it, wandering, perplexed by her
And the howling fox with two cubs

23. A skittish camel, crying out, fleeing
Untamed among the stallion’s daughters

24. As if lagging behind the caravan when it departed
Scabby, mangy from the blue lice

25. Twisting fate, hump-backed, ill-omened
Bleating with the full moon in decline

26. Or silent, dark-lipped, with braided locks
Repulsive, shunned by the winds

27. From Rabráb, between Wahbain and Ma‘qilah
To Qal and Saudān and Tannūm

28. I am al-Tubba‘ the fortunate from Yemen
And by your life, the pearl of kings adorned

29. I am al-Hazbar who humbled warriors
By force and the prey bowed to the hunter

30. I am titled, and the fire of war burns
And the swords have resolve on the foreheads

31. The crown, the throne, the heights know me
And the brown, the white, the bay stallions

32. If you call me to battle, you call a knight
Known to both armies for his courage

33. We are the kings, the sons of kings, those
Who ruled, who take precedence in command

34. We are the noble Tubba‘s who were generous
And whose conquests civilized the regions

35. To us belongs all pride and precedence, to us belongs
Exaltation in the Quran from the All-Dominant

36. Before us the kings of earth bow in prostration
And the opponent is humbled, bent and defeated