1. From the drawing of the house of Kalimani the adorned
It swayed though it did not shine at dawn

2. Except a bare, dishevelled, lonely old man
And an ugly, morose, sallow-skinned one

3. Its quarter was animated by the lines
Of the beautiful script of the dexterous scribe

4. You wept until, from what you found,
Your wailing teardrops flowed copiously

5. Do you cry when naught made you cry but ruins
As if the remains of its drawing were licked up?

6. The elements wore it out over years and changed
Its foundations, the work of decay and separation

7. The morning air erased it until its bare stones appeared
Obliterated, until its drawing was unrealized

8. As if the living had not sung of it before
With its fresh springs, and ties unbroken

9. As if I had not dragged my train
Over every obstinate, malicious, fleeting enemy

10. Yes, many a day I luxuriated in it
In the whiteness of its skin and girding belt

11. When it deposited its thighs in a bending nook
It burst, rending the obstinate camel-saddle

12. As if its fangs held Mayzana's water
Bubbling up through the sniffed spout of the brew

13. I was infatuated by it, though its youth was plucked
While my youth remained lush, undeflowered

14. And I sought permanence, like the enduring sky
To fulfill a need or renew a pact

15. And a carcass which erosion had voided its text
And destroyed its dwellings, every short-lived structure

16. You see every brisk doe leaping nimbly
And a splendid roaming she-camel, belly girt

17. A beauty who casts her glances when she sways
Her hips behind like the swinging of a sand-grouse

18. Her eyes take wing when she distributes her glances
As if a friendly bird accompanied them then

19. And limpid water the darkness of night surrounds
Whose hidden side is covered in deepest gloom

20. When its bucket splashes in the water-drawer
It comes to it covered in the blackest night

21. I drove the scabby wolves away from its valley
And said to my slave, "Bring your bucket and draw!"

22. And I was prepared as night deployed its legions
Against the west as dawn arrived in brightness

23. A chieftain of kings, an Arab of Arabs
On a roan like the lead mares, he took precedence

24. With smooth flanks and soft jawbone, harmonious
Short-backed, deep-chested, long-forelegged, barefoot

25. When it was said he had raided among Sa'al and Sa'alah
Foraying, and he was not cowardly, he acknowledged it

26. As if I and my sword and blindness and my blame
Were upon my docile steed's saddlecloth

27. And an army like the surging waves of the sea I charged,
Routing them in defeat like scattered ostriches

28. And I rose up, aided by the protector of truth, the glorious,
With a raging, wildly swaying, waving sword

29. And with eloquence which twisted and coiled
More tightly than the tailor's twine and thread

30. And I routed a people guided by one inept
Like the braying of the passionate, snorting stallion

31. And I am the cave of refugees when the vicissitudes
Of fate oppress with diverse calamities

32. Fate is but to raise up some humble thing
That it may debase the lofty and bring low the climber

33. Have you not seen that fate made the Thuba submit
And rightly gave the kingdom to Al Musharriq?

34. And it cast down my noble grandfather
And Fate bound him perforce with chains

35. As if the turns of fate in their actions toward them
Chose the souls of kings and picked them out