1. Will trying benefit you, though old age comes
Or is your youth still desired after white hair?

2. Has a high-ranked woman addressed you
O abode of the living, the wild cows have raided your pastures

3. I tasked the one who unties a salty, tightly-bound knot
Alas! A tight knot made of salt

4. My heart has been orphaned until confusion increased it
He who is not addressed except while veiled

5. Cool water from the cold springs would have healed you
Had its keeper not refused

6. As if the sun’s rays rise from the cheek
When he drew near to the people of grit, driving away the cows

7. Glory reached a lineage above which no lineage,
Honor adorns that beauty and perfume

8. Revealing a beauty decorated by the guard
When the black-coated mares jostled

9. Are you crying over us or blaming our faults?
For the heart is held hostage by blamers

10. Don’t you see me while fate changes
Bending backs and straightening stooped ancestors

11. I stretch the sheath of the sword in balance
Like Rudainiyy brandished by the water pipes

12. I can be patient with needs
And crafty if the anklets gathered

13. When we caught up with the living tribe’s camping ground
The white domes of the cow-milkers appeared

14. When we threw greetings in whispered talk
We feared the eyes, some of the people startled

15. On the cheeks my feet have burdened
A figure desiring itself, loved and desired

16. They killed us with eyes, sicknesses adorned them
In sickness is our agony and torture

17. How long are you obsessed with singing girl?
A passion pouring towards her lifelong

18. Can a forbearing man pour in his old age
When his molars and white hair took over?

19. The Imam whose optional deeds are hoped for
After the Imam, the heir apparent Ayyub

20. The forthcoming good, no denial or stinginess
A moon covering the dimmed stars

21. Nomads said when they gave you their kingdom: Decorate
And you are above accounting—all accounting dissipated

22. Whoever fate—the sly and the wolf—drove to you
Seeks refuge without refuge denied or stinginess

23. No tightness or plaiting sea spray was found before
In your dwellings that are adorned with domes

24. God has given you of His knowledge
Wisdom—and after God’s wisdom no rebuttal

25. You are the Caliph of the Merciful, known
By the people of scripture, written in Torah

26. Be like Yusuf when his brothers came
And recognized him, he said no reproach today

27. God privileged him and God guided him
The guidance of Yusuf, when Ya’qub recommended him

28. When you saw the pillars of the kingdom lofty
The vile and the liar fell—the liar exposed

29. They had followers, through whom strife flew
Like how the rock partridges scatter in the wind

30. An extent was reached they did not damage
Except it turned back and the dogs bit it

31. You tempted the transient kingdom while your dwellings
Are the eternal abodes adorned with domes

32. When you relieved Quraysh of every quandary
Quraysh said: may you ransom us, the beloved old man

33. We come to you hoping for an extra
From the Sands of Yabrīn—for the good is sought

34. Fine she-camels lead for us, their litters lost
Five and five in order and order

35. Until they perspired, skin above skin
Their shoulders squandering their outer garments

36. ‘Eediyya was an answer you composed
And the two sons of Na’mah and Ma’kub the struck

37. Rising in every feared pit of harm
As the small boats toss in the tumultuous sea

38. Of every molded slope, rough
Bending its elbow away from the chin

39. If the caravan is told: “Depart!” and the slope is hard
Their piebalds shook out the Harajib gowns

40. They said: “For rest!”—and the tribe’s shade are litters
This fresh caught fish and kneaded dough

41. How to stay there desolate?
Exertion in the fifth, and the sixth, sobbing

42. A desert where the lifespans of ostriches converge
An ‘Eed where sand grouse and gazelles meet