Sol 5.6

  1. What man shall I reward with her—and with my she-camel—

    to deliver the poem on my behalf, once its poet is dead,

  2. as a warning? Yet what can a warning avail at Shabwa

    for one whose sheep and camels are around al-Badī?

  3. Then tell Tamim to put the desert sands before her;

    whoever is not Tamim knows nothing of him amid war’s upheavals.

  4. For Abū Qābūs stands between me and her,

    with a vast host that drives off the birds, its routes of march red.

  5. When they break camp, every urging caller is deafened,

    every rallying crier, by its drumming and its neighing steeds.

  6. May I never see captive women stretching out their breasts

    toward one who shuns his kinsman by marriage and maintains no ties with him.

Sol 5.6