1. From Umm Shaddad's abode the outlines of dwellings
I fancied after long travel and downpour.

2. And after nights gone by and months passed,
After revolving years had run their course,

3. I see in Umm Shaddad's abode a likeness to a gazelle
Roaming with intoxicated, weeping eyes.

4. The cooing of the tender-glancing turtle-doves
Alights in a thickly-wooded valley.

5. And it looks with the eyes of a ewe, Umm Farqad's,
Shading in a meadow with vegetation.

6. And it walks on two robes whose food
Was the leftovers of arid, pouring evenings.

7. And it discloses from the bosom of its folds as though it were
A brake nourished from gushing saplings.

8. Nights we pass in sickness and our life
Is a babble, heedless of a blamer's rebuke.

9. So I came to deny in herlineaments I had known
Whether out of any stinginess or refusal of a seeker.

10. And that was not because of a thing I would have sinned,
Save that grey hair affects all equally.

11. So if you spurn me and incline to another, you will be spurned,
And you gave warning of the way of the fickle.

12. When a friend fails to join you, then do not insist
On his company, and go to another who will keep faith.

13. And a resourceless man leads into error, as though he were
A mat for the feet of the heavily-laden camels.

14. Whenever you wish, if you humble him, you will hear
The croaking of a flock alighting at sunset.

15. Chicks in the wilderness, twins,
Whose red yolks are shattered.

16. Twins without a sign,
Placed in an unknown, sterile tract.

17. And a rugged road the riders fear to enter after nightfall,
Gnawing it with tentpegs.

18. Fearful, in it howling beasts,
I cut them down with both arms paralyzed.

19. Deafening silence, in it confused babbling
For a true tiding or a false comparison.

20. The baggage of the traveling company continues after losing energy.
For them is a howdah between actuality and maturity.

21. Lofty and slender yet confounding in it
Firmly rooted trees of tangled disposition.

22. It responds to echoes and sometimes alarm seizes it -
The gloom of a beggar aggressive to the group.

23. A gangling she-camel prancing with the luggage, neck craning,
Vying with a stallion like pigeons with necks outstretched.

24. With a trot unlike the feigned,
When it alights on a dune and does not shirk.

25. As though my mount gathers in it a smooth-going hyena
Between two fires, most prudent.

26. It sings in the wilderness loudly
Like starving bellies screaming for aid.

27. And a she-camel driven by the heat from which its young
And whose proboscides have shriveled like an eyebrow's dye.

28. And the traveler of the day determined his affair
With an open-armed maiden given to intrigues,

29. And aspired to a myrtle-scented tryst but was barred
By squatting men lying in wait at the watering-place,

30. Whenever she comes to water at night, she is apprehensive
Fearing one who lies in wait or a roper.

31. As though an ostrich Mudhahhad where it was delayed
With its chicks from its gaped mouth in multitudes.