1. A memory of the love of Layla recurs to torment me,
Like the visit of my brother fever when I say “it was brief”.

2. As if the palms of noble Ghifban were lofty,
And the sailboats anchored were red.

3. Do you not know that when I join a beauty,
Thus have I turned away, more deserving of patience was I.

4. Of a roaring lion, whose breath was as if
The brother of ember stirred his longing and remembered.

5. I descended in Malboon as if its gloom
Was lifted from a dark night the color of twisted fiber.

6. The trustee of the frowning night, when the people detected
As far as the eye could see a figure, more keen of sight was he.

7. Like a he-goat of Al-Iran the mouse-colored, hounds
Saw him from afar and went to him.

8. And my uncle Al-Jaba has brought the people to his bare
Hill for them to dwell in from the yellow water skins.

9. And a tear which the willow branch yearns to show
When the people brought the stranger closer.

10. You see in its edges folly, and its body
Standing, it wears out the cloak, threadbare.

11. I left at the end of the night my place
Next to it, and my thick-threaded cloak pinned down.

12. And the pair of sand grouse gathered up, their young
Like the eyelid of the Yemeni, Nayyuh, which was creased.

13. And a barren watchtower which I reached while delaying
To socialize with ghosts or to wander.

14. In haste I left it deceitfully, and the palms
Had shed their load, and the dawn turned red then vanished.