علام تلوم عاذلة جهول — Jarir

Why does an ignorant woman reproach me,

when travel has worn out our riding camels?

For a sword wears out its two carrying straps,

and its striking edges swiftly grow thin.

They crossed toward you, grown unsightly,

through wastes whose miles cannot be counted.

They passed through al-Samawah after Khabt;

little did we linger—little indeed.

And, after fatness, the withers have overtopped

their humps, and the belly has drawn tight.

Upon you, though you have worn away as we have,

be God's peace, O traces of abandoned camps.

Did the clan depart that day at the sand-bend of Huyayy?

Yes, they departed, and the burning thirst remained unquenched.

Those nights when she would not bid us farewell in estrangement,

and make us despair, nor would she grant us a favor.

It is as though, when Salma goes far from you,

you were head-wounded, wasting away when you recall it.

We remembered what you forgot on the morning at Qaww,

and a faithful lover may be stirred to yearning.

O reproacher, what ails your reproach? I do not see it

abating; the worst adviser is the fault-finder.

Blessed Sulayman, as you well know,

is the rightly guided one; the path has become clear.

You sheltered every soul from oppression,

and fulfilled what the Messenger enjoined.

The pledge of allegiance to you is pure, its covenant firm,

so the balance of justice now does not tilt.

Ah, has the caliph any concern for Nizar?

For they have come to this: most of them are worn out.

And widows and orphans call upon you,

and whoever has come to have no means.

And women on foot complain to you of hardship,

and have neither an unruly mount nor a tame one.

And most of their food, dark-faced as they are,

is scraps of hide and sinew roasted in embers.

And the overburdened man calls upon you after hardship,

and a captive whom fetters have hurt.

And there was always a woman hung by a breast

at Dhu al-Dimas, or a man slain.

You freed them from anguish and iron rings,

so the people and the drought-stricken land revived.

When noble deeds are competed for, among you are

the people's springtime and deep-rooted nobility.

You freely slaughter pregnant she-camels for every guest,

when rendered fat is prized in a famine year.

You have risen above every hill and summit,

while others are valley-bottoms and hollows.

Yours is a branch that overtops every branch,

and an excellence no other excellences can match.

Indeed, your ancestral stock has grown tall and noble,

so noble are your paternal and maternal uncles.

The firmly rooted mountains may vanish on every horizon,

but your glory is never demolished and never passes away.