1. My two friends, pass by Umm Jundab
To soothe the agonized heart's yearning

2. For if you both wait to look on me an hour
Of time, you'll aid me with Umm Jundab

3. Have you not seen me, whenever I came by night
I found her kind, though she was unadorned

4. A chaste woman of noble lineage is she
Of excellent character, if you but look closely

5. Oh, would that I knew how fares her troth
And how she keeps faith with the absent one

6. Did our love remain as it was before
Or turned to mere words from the slanderer?

7. If you shun her for some time without meeting
You cause what the experienced know full well

8. She said: when did I stingily withhold myself
Or make excuse that hurt you, though unmeant?

9. Look, my friend; do you see, of calamities
A cleft amidst the two slopes of Sha'baab

10. They ascended Antioch, above Aqmah
Like a palm tree, or an oasis of Yathrib

11. By God, cursed be he who saw our parting
And left, avoiding the tie of love

12. Some of them crossed the trunks of palms
Others cut through the plateau of Kabkab

13. Your eyes are like a rivulet in a meadow
Like the sea water confined in an aqueduct

14. No vain boaster has gloried over you
Nor weakling conquered you, like conquerors do

15. You've not cut off a lover's heart and soul
With a morning visit or an evening goodbye

16. With the blood of cubs as though their necks
Were stained with henna on tattooed skin

17.
The turtle-dove sings at dawn from every nest

18. The songs of regret of the repentant lovers
It gathered young she-camels of 'Amayah

19. Braying for fresh legumes in every watering-hole

20. In a rugged land whose herbs the lost beasts grazed
An army of despoilers and defeated men

21. And it fed while the birds were in their nests
And the dew water flowed over every tail

22.
In Munjad, where the camels of the devout are tied

23. Warding off every roaming beast of prey
With copious flowing water as though its currents

24. Were pouring down on the steppe and mountainside

25. It competes with the untamed onager whom none can ride
You'd think its figure like a firmly planted peg

26. With the legs of a gazelle and an ostrich's shanks
And the neigh of a led mare above a hillock

27.
And it steps surely on hard smooth ground as though

28. The pebbles of Ghayl or firm slabs of Tuhlub
Its cheek is like the thickets soaked by the dew

29. To a defiled, intertwined and twisted branch

30. Its eye is like the mirror of an artisan
Turned in its socket of carved white marble

31. Its ears discern fatigue when still far off
Like the hearing of a startled creature midst the throng

32.
The well-trodden road is as though its bridle

33. And both reins are on a smoothly planed branch
Red are its forelocks like the torrents rushing down

34. As though it dashes along the channel of Sha'b

35. When it breaks into a gallop and swerves aside
You'd say the murmur of the wind passed by Athab

36. Circling about like an unleashed mare whose neck
Inclines to a trunk like the defiled and twisted branch

37.
It remains in the barren land until you'd say

38. A band of the Tai tribe passed without returning
One day among a flock with glossy hides

39. Another day by the dunes of Umm Tulayb

40. While ewes were grazing greensward
With the gait of girls strolling in an open space

41. It called us and held back its she-camels
And said: My friends, your mounts have strayed. Go seek!

42.
How excellent was that excellent advice which made us bear

43. Our boy upon the saddlecloth of Mahboob the striped
And he rushed off like heavy evening rain

44. Coming out from between two braided tresses

45. The whip had a quick blow, the riding-crop a pearl bead
And his shout a terrifying crash of thunder

46. Till he found them unflagging and unwearied
Passing like the pierced cartilage of Al-Walid

47.
You see the rat in the marsh mud, slipping

48. Over the new desert sands from the intense glowing heat
The lizards hid from their burrows as though

49. They hid from an evening visitor in the dark

50. So it raced with enmity between a bull and ewe
And between a youth like a dried-upwraith

51. Remaining for the cattle's herd a terror
Frightening them with the watchful yellow snake

52.
Cheeks covered in the flushed sweat of effort

53. Girded with a Medean sword like a polished spearhead
And we said to noble youths: Come down to us

54. So they granted us the surplus of a striped garment

55. Its pegs were from Maadhyah, its poles
Rudainiyah, with iron nails of Qudayb