1. O Mayy, arise and mourn with me at dawn, with lamenting like that of grieving camel drivers,
Bearing heavy burdens that weigh upon beasts long driven on,

2. Wailing women, their faces glowing like live coals,
As if their tears were a torrent dyeing their plaits with blood.

3. They shake their loose hair in that open country of anguish
As if it were the tails of mares at dawn tossed by the rising sun,

4. Amidst slain and mutilated bodies mangled by claws,
They weep with the lament of women stripped bare, worn out by toil,

5. And sorrow has struck their hearts with an affliction that rends,
When the two Yemeni lads whom we used to wish well were destroyed.

6. The comrades of Uhud - time has treated them harshly and torn them with sorrows -
He who was our horseman and protector when the weapons were wielded.

7. O Hamzah, no, by God I shall not forget you as long as the white camels travel!
As a refuge for orphans, guests, and a widow who makes signs with her eye;

8. And for what befalls in time of war following war in long sequence.
O horseman, O archer, O Hamzah, you were the desperate fighter

9. To guard us women when disaster came suddenly upon us.
You remind me of the Apostle's lion who was our desperate defender

10. Protecting us, and he was counted when the noble heroes were numbered,
Raising the banners openly, descendent of two generous hands, no waverer

11. Or trembler or one disabled from bearing arms in the heat of battle;
A sea - no neighbour on its shore complains of ebb or current or shore.

12. The prime of those careful of their honour is lost, and those firm in the saddle;
Those who offer food when the evening fires blaze and it crackles as it burns;

13. Flesh of the polished sword above which is fat in strips;
To defend their neighbour from whoever would wrong him.

14. I yearn for youths we brought up as if they were lanterns,
Pure Badriyan, Ghatfanian, Khadrami, warriors;

15. Who purchase glory with their wealth - glory is profitable merchandise!
And press onward with their companies some day when the shouter shouts;

16. He against whom curses used to be thrown in days not worthy.
Still his travelling companions race each other tracing figures in the dusty earth,

17. Till the high fortunes answer to him - success is not for outlaws.
O Hamzah, you have left me alone like a stick scrubbed by a polisher -

18. I complain to you - and above you is heaped-up soil and gravel
Poured out over you from a hollow they have dug, levelled by the roller.

19. Our consolation is merely that we say - and what we say has wandering utterance -
"Let him come to us and weep whose eyes have been spared today's disaster,

20. The speakers, the doers, generous and praiseworthy men
Whose hands still cloud the bright sky, whose liberality pours continually."