ما للمطايا تكثر الحنينا

كأنّها فاقدةٌ قرين

What ails the riding camels, that they moan so much?

As though they had lost a companion.

أثقلها الوجد فلو أمكنها

ما حملتْ نضوَ جوى حزينا

Longing has weighed them down; if they could,

they would not carry a sorrowful wreck of love's anguish.

تشتاقُ يبرين وكم من عاشقٍ

يشتاقُ مثل شوقها يبرينا

They yearn for Yabrin; and many a lover

yearns for Yabrin with a yearning like theirs.

فمن شكا قبيح الفراقِ جاهداً

فإنما أشكو الحسان العينا

Whoever earnestly bewails the ugliness of parting,

I complain only of the beautiful, large-eyed women.

ضعائفٌ ما لي بها من قوة

بواسمٌ قد أبكت العيونا

Frail women, against whom I have no strength;

smiling women who have made eyes weep.

لأسقيت أرض الحمى فيغرها

لا تنبتُ الأقمار والغصونا

May the protected pasture's land go unwatered, for other lands

grow neither moons nor boughs.

وبأبي بيضاءُ ودَّ الورق لو

تأخذ عنها سجعها الموزونا

And my father be ransom for a fair one: the gray doves wish

to learn her measured, rhyming speech from her.

تجدُّ أو تمجنُ أحياناً فما

أحسنَ ذاكَ الجدَّ والمجونا

She is earnest, or sometimes playful—how

lovely that earnestness and that playful abandon!

واتخذت من شعرها سلاسلاً

للقلب مذ جنَّ بها جنونا

And she fashioned chains from her hair

for the heart, ever since it went utterly mad for her.

كالدّعصِ ردفاً والأقاحي مبسماً

والشمسِ وجهاً والقضيبِ لينا

Like a sandhill in her hips, and daisies in her smiling mouth,

and the sun in her face, a slender bough in her suppleness.

لا واللحاظِ الفاتراتِ ليس لي

من سلوةٍ وشرفتْ يميناً

No, by those languid glances, I have

no solace—and what a noble oath!

ضنينةٌ بالحسن أعدتْ خلقي

فصرتُ من وجدي بها ضنيناً

Miserly with beauty, she has infected my nature,

so my longing for her has left me ailing.

تهزُّ رمحَ قدّها فلا انثنى

يوماً سوى قلبي به طعيناً

She brandishes her stature's spear; nothing has bent

ever, save my heart, pierced by it.

إيهاً ودعني من أحاديث الهوى

إنَّ الحديثَ محدثٌ شجونا

Enough! Spare me these tales of love.

Indeed, such talk awakens sorrows.

بيتا على العيس وقد جدَّ السُّرى

نبكي من البين وتشكو البينا

Spend the night, you two, on the pale camels; the night journey has grown urgent.

We weep for parting, and they lament parting.

نحثّها بالزفرات لا ونتْ

فتسبق السائق والحادينا

We urge them on with sighs—may they never flag—

so they outrun the driver and the camel-chanters.

وكيف لا تنجو على بعد المدى

خفائفٌ بنفسي حدينا

And how should they not speed on, however far the way—

light-footed camels, urged on by song—my life be their ransom?

جاذبها الشوقُ وأنضاها الأسى

فخلّها تجاذب البرينا

Longing has tugged at them, and sorrow worn them down;

so let them tug against their nose-rings.

تحسب أنَّ بحرَ دمعي ناضب

لا والذي أنشأها سفيناً

You think the sea of my tears has run dry?

No, by Him who fashioned them as ships!

أو أنَّ مثلاً للعزيزِ كائنٌ

لعزَّ ما يحسب أن يكونا

Or that an equal to al-Aziz exists?

Hard indeed to find is what is imagined to exist!