1. Alas! Early dawned Salma, so her energetic one hastened at dawn,
And split the staff after its lord had assembled it,

2. Whenever we say the intentions have differed,
Salma trickles tears or her eyelids well up.

3. She has straight, slender stalks with which
The palm-trees of Salma, silent, were erected and fenced.

4. Whenever we cannot afford to visit Salma,
We ardently wish Salma well, whoever visits her.

5. Will the longing camel convey to me any news
Whose weak knees in pacing sluggishly totter?

6. Deliverance comes under its shadows to the meadow,
Where the roaring, growling lion prowls.

7. Alas! Would that I knew whether Saliṭ lacked
Any ally but Ghassan to protect her!

8. They harbored in their bosoms a man of evils
Who whispers to himself, his conscience mean.

9. You will know what Ḥukaym and Manqa‘ avail
If the war does not end with peace through its envoy.

10. Alas! How ill Saliṭ fares when her steeds multiply,
And her plains grow wider in breadth!

11. Young warriors hastening their excellent horses at dawn,
When the horsemen urge them to raid.

12. Saliṭ lacks any horseman of vigilance,
And its sanctuary, when war flares up, are its rocky plains.

13. Rouse the valleys by the announcing of booty, for you
Will curb the speed of horses pierced in their throats.

14. I wonder at him who summoned Juḥaysh and Sāʾid,
While ʿAysāʾ strives with cows slow to drive.

15. The cows of ʿAysāʾ are sluggish, and the sheep penned,
So what has ʿAysāʾ attempted, or what is her excuse?

16. When you proudly carry yourselves, then honor
Juḥaysh when her camels return from summer pasture.

17. Men donning a cloak among whom
A striped cloak of goat hair is tossed about.

18. When it is said a band from Saliṭ, their
Riders and mounts are blamed, both ignoble and bringer of news.

19. I prohibited you from riding the belligerent
War, which twists its train as a warner.

20. You have no patience for Mashrifiyyah
Who snatches away the young of protected ostriches.

21. You wished to plunder the settlements their inhabitants.
Thus did delusion seduce Juḥaysh.

22. Biqaʿāʾ had a meadow for your cattle
And Tilʿah, and Al-Jawbāʾ watered by its brook.

23. Abstain, and do not take captives from Mashrifiyyah,
Which makes the ostriches fly from it terrified.

24. As if the Salīṭīs were remnants of Kamaṭah
Stirred up by the first comer with a staff.

25. You were angry at it or sang its praises
When its vegetation turned green from the bosom of ridges.

26. Had forebearance in the adorned one been of use,
Its chests would not have swelled without crime.

27. The clan of Khatafah and the horses in the days of Suffah
Drove from you the darkness, and its light split.

28. In the well of Ḥiṣn, Ḥafīẓah reached it
And its digger turned away from it twice.

29. So we came while it had become pasture again, blessed.
Labor pain that found none to stimulate it befell it.

30. If his opinion went astray one day with the fickle one
And he envied ʿAwf, it would not harm it.

31. But it is best, yes, best, that the adorned one
Be afflicted with the contagion of enemies, quick are its pangs.

32. On the day of Ḥidāb their women were stripped bare
So their haunts were disgraced and their bridal payments lessened.