1. The twilight of age has removed the hair of my head,
And whiteness has appeared in the blackness separating it.

2. My youth was destroyed in one morn and eve,
For time is but its coming and going.

3. I have attained what Zuheir said about his time before me,
And though he perishes, his words are immortalized.

4. Look, my friend - do you see any young, slender palm trees
Or ships with their towering masts?

5. He settled in the garden of sorrow between Layya
And Saihan, leaning on them and their enclosures.

6. When he saw his tribe depart he bade them farewell
And burned the tents and their skirts.

7. They decided on departure and went unrestrained in their love,
Fearing Iraq and its revolutions.

8. They were told what was between the ravines and twists -
Its valleys and plains watered it with their torrents.

9. They ventured into the deserts, which the winds wove into waves
Whose troughs corresponded with the soothsayers' incantations.

10. Whenever the wind came to it from one side,
It would seize the dust and transport it to the other.

11. With its edge devoid of one who calls to the departed
Or claims anything but what is true.

12. On every pilgrim its compassion excelled,
Through the grace of its bridle or a swaying carrier.

13. In the beginning, the first object of its waters
Was the purest rainwater from its downpour.

14. Ignorance may one day sally forth to me and I to it,
To a flock like locusts of the wadis corresponding to it.

15. Three bubbling of speech and a critic
Of the master - it is neither free of nor loving him.