قفا نبك من ذكرى حبيب ومنزِل

Halt, both of you, let us weep for the memory of a beloved and a home at the twisting edge of the sands between Dakhul and Hawmal,

And Tudhidh and Miqrata, whose traces have not yet been wiped away, despite the weaving of the southern and northern gales across them.

You can see the dung of wild deer scattered across its courtyards and hollow flats, looking just like grains of black pepper.

On the morning of our parting, the day they loaded their camels, I stood beside the acacia trees of the tribe like one splitting colocynth fruit.

My companions pulled up their mounts beside me, waiting, and said: "Do not die of grief; show some restraint and bear it with grace."

Yet truly, my only healing is a flood of poured-out tears; is there any comfort to be found at a worn-out, ruined campsite?

It is your habit with Umm al-Huwairith before this, and her neighbor Umm al-Rabab at Ma'sal,

So that the tears overflowed from my eyes out of sheer yearning, running down my collar until they soaked the wooden frame of my saddle.

Ah, how many a fine day I have spent with them, and especially the day at the pool of Juljul!

And the day I slaughtered my riding camel for the maidens—how astonishing was the baggage-saddle being carried away!

The maidens spent the day tossing around its meat and slabs of fat that looked like twisted fringes of white silk.

And the day I entered the curtained tent—the tent of 'Unaiza—and she cried out: "Woe to you, you are going to get me killed!"

She said, while the camel litter tilted beneath us together: "You have hamstrung my mount, O Imru' al-Qais, so step down."

I said to her: "Keep walking and slacken its reins, and do not keep me away from your sweet, nourishing fruit."

Many a pregnant woman like you, and nursing mother too, have I visited by night, and managed to distract away from her year-old infant wearing amulets:

Whenever the baby cried behind her, she would turn to him with one side of her body, while the other side remained beneath me, entirely unmoved.

And another day upon the ridge of the sand dune she proved difficult for me, and swore an unbroken oath of refusal.

O Fatima, ease up on some of this coquetry; and if you have truly resolved to cut me off, make it a graceful separation.

If some trait of mine has displeased you, then pull your clothes out from my clothes so they slip away cleanly.

Has it deceived you that my love for you is my killer, and that your heart obeys you in whatever you command?

Your eyes only wept to strike with your twin arrows into the chambers of a heart already battered and slain.

And many a protected maiden whose tent pavilion is unapproachable—I have stolen leisurely moments of pleasure with her.

I slipped past vigilant guards to reach her, and a clan who would have been thrilled to keep my murder a secret.

When the Pleiades crossed paths across the sky, curving like the segmented beads of an embroidered belt,

I arrived when she had cast off her garments for sleep beside the privacy curtain, clad only in a light tunic.

She said, "By God, you have no trick left, and I see that your wild infatuation is never going to clear away."

I led her out walking, while she dragged behind us the embroidered hem of a trailing patterned gown over our footprints.

When we had cleared the courtyard of the tribe and headed into the hollows of Khabth with its rolling dunes,

I pulled her head by its parting locks toward me, and she leaned against me, slender-waisted and cool-ankled.

Whenever she turned toward me, her scent drifted out like the breeze of the dawn wind carrying the fragrance of fresh cloves.

Slender-waisted, pale-skinned, not overly plump, her chest polished like a smooth bronze mirror.

Like a young, unblemished camel's hide tinged white with yellow, nourished by pure, unshared stream water.

She turns away, revealing a smooth cheek, and defends herself with the watchful eye of a desert doe accompanied by her fawn.

With a neck like the neck of a white antelope, neither excessively long nor left bare without ornaments,

And dark, jet-black hair that adorns her back, thick and clustering like the heavy branch of a loaded date palm.

Her braids point upward toward the top of her head, leaving the knots lost between twisted locks and flowing strands.

With a slender waist like a braided rope, and a shin like the smooth water-pipe of an irrigated garden.

She reaches out with a soft hand, neither stiff nor calloused, resembling desert caterpillars or tooth-sticks of Isil wood.

She lights up the darkness of the evening like the elevated lantern of a solitary, devoted monk.

She wakes in the morning with crushed musk lingering over her bed, sleeping late into the forenoon without needing to tighten a work-belt.

Toward such a woman a sensible man gazes with longing when she blossoms fully between her shift and her wrapper.

Other men's wild passions have cooled away from youthful folly, but my heart cannot be torn away from your love.

Ah, how many a stubborn critic regarding you I have turned away—a sincere advisor whose earnest scolding was entirely genuine!

And many a night like the waves of the ocean that cast down its curtains over me with every kind of grief to test my endurance.

I said to it when it stretched out its spine, dragged its heavy rear, and leaned down with its massive chest:

“O long night, break at last into a morning, though the morning ahead is no better than you!”

What a night it is! As if its stars were anchored with twisted ropes of hemp to the solid rock of Mount Yadhbul.

As if the Pleiades were hung in their resting place by linen cables tied fast to unyielding stone.

Often I set out early while the birds are still in their nests, upon a lean, powerful steed swift enough to catch wild beasts,

A charger that wheels and charges, advancing and retreating all at once, solid as a boulder hurled down from above by a flood.

A bay horse whose saddle blanket slips right off the curve of its spine just as rain slides off a smooth, polished slab of rock.

Tireless when the other exhausted swimming mounts kick up dust across the trampled earth of the valley floor,

Bounding forward, surging with a roar like the boiling of a bronze cauldron when its internal heat reaches a fever pitch.

Lightweight slave boys are tossed right off its saddle, while clumsy, heavy riders find their garments whipped away by its speed.

Swift as a child's spinning top, driven into motion by the turning of two hands along a continuous cord.

It has the flanks of a gazelle, the shins of an ostrich, the running stride of a wolf, and the quick gallop of a fox cub.

Across its shoulders, when it leans forward into its stride, rests the broad width of a bride's perfume-stone or a colocynth mortar.

It spent the night fully saddled and bridled, standing upright before my eyes, never let loose to wander.

Then there suddenly flashed upon us a herd of wild does looking like young maidens of a ritual dance clad in trailing robes.

They turned tail, fleeing like a colorful Yemeni bead necklace interspersed across the neck of a noble, high-born youth.

My steed caught up with the leading does, while the rest of the herd lagged behind in a tight, inseparable cluster.

It ran down wild bulls and does in rapid succession without breaking a sweat or needing to be washed down.

The camp cooks spent the day either roasting thin slices of meat over the fire or hurrying a hearty stew.

We returned at evening while the noble horse shook its head; the sharper the eye looks at it, the more wonders it uncovers.

The dark blood of the leading prey smeared across its chest looked like orange henna juice mixed into gray, freshly-parted hair.

And when you view it from behind, it completely blocks the gap with a full, flowing tail that brushes the earth and is never unarmed.

O Harthah, do you see the lightning I am showing you, flashing like moving hands across a crowned, rain-heavy cloud?

Its brilliance shines like the lamps of a monk who has poured abundant oil into twisted candle-wicks.

I sat watching it with my companions between Hamir and the sand dunes of Bu'd, noting how distant our goal truly was.

By morning, the rain was pouring down from every cloudburst, beating down the massive roots of the old Kenhabal trees headlong into the mud.

It left not a single palm trunk standing in Taima, nor any stone fortress except those built solidly of granite.

By morning, the crest of Mount Mujaimir, covered in flood debris and floating scum, looked just like the whorl of a hand-spindle.

Mount Aban amidst the driving torrents looked like an imposing tribal elder wrapped tightly in a striped woolen cloak.

The storm dumped its massive cargo onto the plain of Ghabit like a wealthy Yemeni merchant unloading his well-stocked leather travel bags.

By early morning, drowned wild beasts caught in its swirling edges lay scattered like uprooted wild onions.

The storm's heaviest fury struck Mount Qatan on the right, while its left side battered Sitar and Mount Yadhbul.

As night fell, it settled its heavy weight upon Baisan, driving even the nimble mountain ibexes down from every rocky refuge.