1. إذا أمست الآفاق حمراً جنوبها

    لشيبان أو ملحان واليوم اشيب

    When at evening the horizons turned crimson along their flanks,

    in winter’s Shaybān or Milḥān, while the day itself was hoary,

  2. ووحوح في حضن الفتاة ضجيعها

    ولم يك في النكد المقاليت مشخب

    in the maiden’s embrace her bedmate rasped, “waḥ, waḥ,”

    and among the scant-yielding females whose young did not survive, there was not one that streamed milk.