قد غير الحي بعد الحي إقفار — Jarir

Desolation has changed encampment after encampment,

as though it were a scripture recited by rabbis.

I had experienced neither faithfulness nor affection

with fair women, nor any turning away from them.

May the dwellings between al-Dam and al-Udma be watered

by a raincloud, streaming copiously over al-Saʿdayn.

As though its lightning, while the rain bursts forth,

were piebald horses, with foals emerging among the piebald horses.

O Shabb, the houbara will be given no respite

by a flesh-hungry, dark-cheeked hunter abroad at dawn.

O Shabb, war, once it blazes, cannot be faced

by a frail bone with watery marrow inside.

O Shabb, in Qays your noses have always met

humiliation and humiliation, blood-debts and blood-debts.

O Shabb, woe to you! Do not deny our horsemen their due,

on the day Ibn Kabsha was overbearing in rule, a tyrant.

Had Yarbuʿ not protected your women,

their days of purity would have belonged to men other than you.

Al-Musayyab and the two cavalry hosts stood in defense amid battle-dust,

in days when Shabba offered no protection, nor Naʿʿar.

When ʿIqal did not defend your honor,

nor did Zurara or Zarrar offer protection.

Indeed, had al-Hawari summoned our horsemen,

they would have died as martyrs, or he would have escaped; the men are freeborn.

Indeed, al-Farazdaq—whoever becomes entangled in his visit

is ruined by filth; he is a frequent visitor to private parts.

Indeed, al-Farazdaq, O Miqdad, is your visitor.

Woe to Qadd! Who is shut within the house?

Where are the defenders among Maslama's sons?

Or where, where are Badr's sons and Sayyar?

There has always been a defender of your honor in the house,

among the women, reproachful of spirit and fiercely jealous.