1. The beautiful Nadira, mistress of the tent,
Yearned for you though you didn’t reciprocate.

2. So I stood in the wilderness to ask her,
“How did you find your way to the home of travel?”

3. The camel saddle’s straps are slackened
By all they see of her exhaustion.

4. Her faults have outweighed her virtues
From the harm that melancholy brought her.

5. When the day would wane for us
We’d ambush it with curving scimitars,

6. Far-strung bows to waylay it, making sport of us,
Sparing us neither advice nor rebuke.

7. She-camels going forward, each an emigrant
Breathing through a throat bleached pale.

8. And her halting place at every stopover
Is like where a hyena, mangy and foul, slept.

9. One day she stood on a peg and challenged us,
Flaunting her saddle or hinting of danger.

10. And I exerted myself through the long day though
Her shoulder blades were prominent from leanness.

11. On the dark night I penetrate it
With my comrades in pitch-black desolation,

12. Where each echo calls to its brother
As a bereaved woman calls at the grave.

13. Its darkness blocks my palm
Until it's hard on one walking there,

14. And I have seen the caravan—its people—
And guided them, their paths obscured by dust.

15. I shared my mount, being gracious to them
In difficulty and ease.

16. So when misfortunes shake me
And my chest feels no constraint from their need,

17. I repay those who show me honor,
And from those who quarrel with me my sword keeps its distance.

18. My determination exhausts those who would test me.
By your life, I am no idle boaster!

19. I do not steal what the poets have uttered,
But their poetry does not accord with mine.

20. This lineage of mine contents me;
My speech is like the splitting of rock.

21. My brother among the jinn, the keen-sighted one,
Weaves the finest speech.

22. Distance lies between me and you,
An interval, after I departed.

23. I thanked you for your gifts and your testing me.
If my thanks benefit you, do not sever

24. My tie to you, do not seek
Another in my stead unless you know my news.

25. Be generous, for generosity is noble,
And requite the swords for some of what they reap.

26. I swore I shall never forget you
So long as the sharp-bladed sword flashes.

27. And I swore I shall not forget your words
As long as the reveler recalls the sweetness of wine,

28. For you are the most beautiful when you come forth to us
On the day of departure in the field of the palace,

29. Like a pearl the kings pay dearly for
From the pearl diver wandering the depths of the sea,

30. Pearly white—if she passed by one
Reciting scripture, the clarity shining in his prayer book,

31. Devoutly avoiding all disgrace,
Living in hermitages in awe of sin—

32. You would see him impassioned, remembering her,
Her sight interrupting his devotions.

33. She eclipsed the women of all worlds
As the rising moon eclipses the stars,

34. Smooth of leg, the two like columns
Of pearl meandering, immersed.

35. She grows like her buttocks grow
In the abode of the splendid and proud.

36. Longing takes hold of me, so I recall her
With no kinship or marriage tie between us,

37. Like the thirsty man’s recall though he has no
Water skin or towering, barren crag.

38. She would sit with me but then my cramped arm and fear of disgrace
Would stop me.

39. If you didn’t passionately love, you wouldn’t have come.
Or if what you twisted and coiled in your den

40. Were not there, I’d inevitably come, seeking it.
So spare me your shame and accept my excuse!

41. Say to Nadira, if you happen upon her:
The generous man is no holder of riches.

42. Rise, O Banu Najjar, their backup
Is excellent, and they are my ready help.

43. Death is beneath me, I cannot be subdued,
And the noble souls of Banu ‘Amr—

44. A knee-haltered camel herd whose fortresses
Once sheltered us in days gone by.