1. Begin to weep: the company is striking camp.

    One declares their parting openly, and another hints at it.

  2. And melt your heart, for the helper against separation

    is an overflowing eye and a soul breaking apart.

  3. Those are camel-litters being fastened, and these

    are tent ropes being loosened and undone.

  4. And behind their kneeling pale camels is a band:

    their livers gallop though they stand still.

  5. They stood, while the innermost depths of their souls with sorrow

    were filled, and the vessels of their tears were emptied.

  6. They whisper, worn with longing: one lets out a moan,

    another quiets a sigh, and another lowers his voice.

  7. They clutched their livers with their hands,

    and longing wrenches from a hand whatever it grasps.

  8. When they felt safe from the watcher, they spoke openly

    of their complaints; and if they grew suspicious, they turned away.

  9. They departed; the ways of the weepers behind them

    were varied: one pouring out tears, another holding them back.

  10. I sent a sigh and tears after them: the fire of the former

    scorches the meadows; the latter's water makes them bloom.

  11. Who will seek for me at al-ʿAqīq a remnant of life

    that fell behind the caravan the moment they struck camp?

  12. It did not turn back, nor did it catch up with them,

    until it weakened from falling and rising.

  13. Do you think their archers knew whom they pierced so deeply

    in the heart with those arrows, stirring them about?

  14. Ah, I am content with the blood of mine they spilled

    deliberately, despite the tribe's anger—are they content?

  15. May pure, limpid water delight them, although they

    made me choke on my saliva the day they bade me farewell.

  16. They passed the night with sound hearts, while with us remains

    from them, despite the distance, what afflicts and sickens.

  17. Friend, you are the one I consult about what has befallen me

    through the mishaps of time, and the one I call upon for aid.

  18. In longing I complain to you of what helps shed my blood:

    lightning that gleamed after a watch of night and keeps flashing.

  19. Who, then, will protect the eye-sockets from the radiance

    of lightning like a sand-viper flicking its tongue?

  20. Restless in its flashing, it never shuts its eye

    at night, nor lets the eyes close.

  21. At night, over the sweet pastureland, there were spread for it

    robes gilded at one moment and silvered at another.

  22. It brought the darkness to life with pulses and consumed me; never

    did its radiance depart while a vein in me still pulsed.

  23. And at al-Jarʿāʾ's bend is a clan who roused

    the traveling camel-litters in my heart and made them settle.

  24. Indeed I cried out, while the face of my longing advanced

    with them, and the face of patience turned away from me:

  25. Bring it back: I shall live by its return; or else join

    all of me to it, for a living being cannot be divided.

  26. They begrudged returning the precious thing and substituted

    sorrow for it—away with what they gave in exchange!

  27. They did not make al-ʿAqīq's environs their home; rather,

    they wintered in the quarters of my soul and summered there.

  28. Friend, is there a giver who can bestow fortitude,

    or a lender who will lend forgetfulness of it?

  29. By my father, consolation is hard to find, and there remains no

    hilt of the sword of fortitude in my hands.

  30. I have run out of the provisions of forgetting; how long can

    one without provisions last once his store is exhausted?

Sol 6.1