1. With his fair-foliaged lote-tree he brought round all good men,
Saying, “Give us clear signs that it is greeting from ‘Ufra.”

2. My eyes have shed in the abode floods of tears
Assailed by time and drenched by showers with rain.

3. I said to my companion, “Though indeed
I conceal anguish in my breast hot as embers,

4. By your lives, hurry not, for a stance there is
At the abode in it killing or rest of time.

5. Except gloom and darkness tending with barn-owls
There is in the abode no eye it bodes ill,

6. By God, what passion has it stirred from a youth
Who raves of Hind, and knows not what he says!

7. He has harbored sorrow in his heart until
By it is breathed a spell, or stronger than spells.

8. Al-Khalid was a guide between me and you,
So absence has inclined to estrangement.

9. May you not requite with anguish that heals me!
I forget you not, except by mention of you.

10. O my two friends, what would you bid me seek
Had not modesty held back my breast?”

11. Stay awhile! For today a day Fortune
Has made for us, no day of ill-omen or harm.

12. If Hind is niggardly to you, leave her be,
But if she is bounteous, a cleft in firm rock.

13. Ends of white fingers as though their roots
Were burgeoning breasts coming from a shaggy goat

14. Much blame from censurers has wearied me.
Estrangement is long, and slander grievous.

15. Has Aethal ever made you an evil pact I recalled not?
Rather I chided Bakr about a matter.

16. So twist not the earth between me and you,
For what is between me and you but twisted!

17. Bones bleaching through the years, and your neighbor
Spends the night with those fearsome in the lair.

18. Aethal, I have not ceased, since I knew you,
To see for you a screen, so unveil not my screen!

19. But for the noble souls—‘Amr son of ‘Aamir—
I had assaulted Bakr with a back-breaking blow.

20. They forbid free pasturage—not so they forbid
Reinforcements to the army, rank after rank.

21. May God reward Yarbu‘ with the best reward
From the Sayyids! No requital nor thanks are in Shayyam.

22. O clans of the Sayyids, we gave you refuge, as you knew,
When calamities closed in about a group.

23. We did you a favor—would you had thanked for our affliction!
And the war of Dhuhl has carried you to wretchedness.

24. O clans of the Sayyids, the groping of Mudrik
Will not erase the scars on your tawny skins.

25. With what affliction do you dissemble submissively,
Ravenous wolves rending on a causeway?

26. Know you not the hypocrites by their beards
When they are treacherous, and boast without boast?

27. I am the moon that dazes your eyelid with its light.
Who makes the prancing ape as the full moon?

28. Jibal has protected me, rugged mountains,
Below me seethe springs from the sea.

29. Mudrik has wandered astray from the path of justice,
A worthless tedious talker, far from the forts.

30. Mudrik never witnessed the day of victory,
Nor the horses pairing off on my two flanks.

31. Nor witnessed us on the day the fiery army,
The horsemen of Wadi'a with fallow steeds.

32. Nor the day of Naqa, the horses of Hajar,
Nor the Sayyid as they plunged in the red pools.

33. We carried off the camels of the Gawan and the Banu Muharraq,
And ‘Amr—we killed the kings of Banu Nasr.

34. When we unsheathe our swords against them,
We set them to repel the terrible giants.

35. When the soul of al-Farazdaq hopes for rest,
It is clad in unending gloom.

36. The hand of the suppliant outcast has found him—
Woe!—pelted by a constant rain from the sea.

37. Perhaps you hope to breathe at last, after you were
Choked, as the tortured man choked in his grave.

38. Not with good fortune did Malik fortify him,
Nor did his mother bear him on the Night of Power.

39. Think not war is finished, now it is enraged
With sudden onslaughts—through you it is provoked!

40. After Banu Badr and booty from your neighbor
Are you content with loss, bent over a tent-peg?

41. I was told of answers and composure that blame me,
And ‘Amr ibn ‘Ifra—no peace upon ‘Amr!