1. For whom is a ruin I saw that made me yearn
Like the stroke of a bee in the valley of Yemen’s streams

2. A land of music, the rebec's wail turned me aside
Our nights with the flute of changes from the rain clouds

3. Nights whose passion calls me and I respond
And the eyes of her I love turn to me in comfort

4. So if I spend a day in sorrow, oh Lord of glorious splendor
I dispel it when the dark face of misfortune frowns

5. And if I spend a day in sorrow, oh Lord of a docile she-camel
Whose saddle I fitted out with fringes

6. She has a warbling voice that rises over the camel-litter on Thursday
More plaintive when you excite her with your hands

7. And if I spend a day in sorrow, oh Lord of a cave I frequented
Witness to the bending neck of the pliant sand-dune

8. On a smooth floor increasingly sleek when you pour on it
Copious ablution water rushing wildly down

9. It rides upon deaf boulders cemented stout
With strong noded ropes all flexibly intertwined

10. And rain from storm clouds hotly recoiling
Whose drizzle I take cover from with a robe of Yemeni broadcloth

11. Retreating, advancing, wheeling round together
Like a white wild cow with horns tossing high

12. When we startle it, its flank quivers
Like marble veins shuddering from the pouring rain

13. Take your pleasure in life, for you will pass away
From delights and beautiful women

14. In white like the Aramis, in red like the ruddy
Their breasts an enclosure, their waists so slender

15. Does the memory of Nabhaniyyah move you? Its people
Wept copiously, your eyes begin to weep

16. Their tears a downpour, a torrent, an outpouring
A sprinkle, a shedding, a welling up

17. As if competing to hasten from their source
When boiled out from their pupils by emotion