أمنجزتي وعدي فقد رحل الركب

Will you fulfill my promise, for the caravan has departed, and the camels hesitate not, nor do the companions halt?

O my two companions, do not think her long reproach strange against me; most of the art of love is reproach.

By my life, a woman of bright temples turned away from me with a face whose beauty made the eastern sun seem a setting one.

Between the lush tamarisk thicket and the curve of sand dunes, and between the twisted belt and the supple green branch.

Beneath her brocade veil her sighs are burning coals, and above her cloak of pride her tears pour down.

She appeared among her peers crying out against parting, though among veiled women she has no equal.

Her tears stream down her smooth cheek, and a passionate soul whose eye-tears flow is quenched by them.

She has entrusted her trembling hands to her heart, fearing lest the heart shatter and burst from her chest.

When they crossed the bridge, they stood behind it like a scattered herd of gazelles with no leader.

She bit upon her pearly teeth with a silver wrist, one whose heart of gold is almost bent by the grief.

She almost made the camels halt, save for my resolve, and swift, slender-nosed, pedigreed mounts.

And a female speaker shed her tears along with her kohl, so they overflowed and the source was beyond control.

To what land do you travel on the swaying camels, while behind you are tender, thirsty fledglings?

Fear God regarding us, do not increase our yearning by distance, for what we suffer close at hand is enough.

So I said, 'Trust in God, O mother of Ma'mar, for some echoing thirst is quenching, and some distance is nearness.'

When I safely kneel my camels at the watering place, our drinking-fount will be sweet and our pasture lush.

Leave me to tread the desert wastes toward her by night; our two birds will fall wherever the grain is picked.

Did you not know that the rain-cloud from her threshold pours its downpours upon us so it streams?

She spoke, and tears wandered through the folds of her garment, having a stream in every single direction.

O youth of Rustam, do not mention parting by its name—may we be your ransom—for even the easiest part of parting is hard.

If a yearning man walks toward you, test me: I stride upon my head, nay, upon my crown I crawl.

Nor did anything hinder me except sons like locust-fledglings in the air, newly emerged upon the ground.

And a female speaker after seventy years of age: my intercessor with you is my weakness, my great age, and the Lord.

Will you abandon a mother distraught today or tomorrow, one for whom the wide land will grow narrow after you are gone?

I shall praise you for the favor you have bestowed upon me, just as the meadow praises the falling rain.

You have poured out for me multiples of what I coaxed forth with my poetry from your grace, so the bucket overflowed.

Those returning from your bounty came back full-bellied, wetting the earth with their sweat while the milk-stream never ceased.

Your generosity intoxicated my poems so that they reeled in gratitude through the world like one who has drunk deep.

The flood of his generosity pervaded the corners of the earth, so no valley or mountain pass was left without his dew.

A generous man who has a rain-cloud in every horizon, and in every land a sweet, flowing watering-place for bounty.

If Ka'b is counted for generosity, his right hand denies it—a hand that on every single fingertip possesses a knuckle of fame.