Translated by A. Z. Foreman - The Cycle of d**h: A Muˁallaqa lyrics

Barren of its people lies Malḥūb, and Al-Quṭabiyyāt, and Al-Dhanūb. Barren of its people too lies Rākis and all of Al-Qalīb and Dhāt Firqayn And ˁArda and Qafā Ḥibirr and Thuˁaylibāt. Nowhere in the land do any of us remain. The land has taken in the wild and beastly instead of its own people. Things have changed. A land inherited by d**h it is. All who once lived there have been raided, razed, Slain by the blade, or left to die alone, and grey hair is the mark of survivors' shame. The tears gush from your eyes, as if their ducts were waterskins too hole-filled to retain A single drop, or as cascades of water down hillside gullies newly washed in rain, Or as a torrent through a wādī bed flooding the valley floor to a waterway, Or a slight stream slow under bending palms wending with wet murmur in their shade. How can you yearn for flings of youth, when your hair warns of a date with d**h in going gray? If the land be changed, its folk displaced and scattered, it is no wonder, nor theirs the first such fate, Though all that mighty expanse be now deserted though it now be home to drought and dearth and plague. There's no hope so firm life will not belie it, no happiness life will not wrest away. No camel but is given to heirs in d**h, no plunderer but is plundered for his take. All who are gone on journeys may return but all who are gone in d**h have pa**ed away. Is a barren womb the equal of the fertile? Is the failed pillager equal to him who gains? Prosper however you will. Sometimes the weak achieve, and sometimes the sk**ful are tricked astray. Men warn not him who will not heed the warnings of Fate. To teach of wisdom is to fail Without the heart-born gift of disposition. How often has a friend become a hater. Give aid in any land you find yourself in, and say not to yourself "I am a stranger." You can grow close with people from afar and be cut off from closest of relations. Man founders in deceit, all the age of his life. Torture for him is a life into old age. Many a stretch of slime-aged standing water I've reached through d**hly, terrifying wastes, The plumes of pigeon carca**es strewn about. The frenzied heart heaves fearful of the place. I pa**ed it on my weary way in worry, I and my brawny mount in the morning haze, My mount: a camel, onager-swift, strong-spined her withers smooth as a dune on a windless day, A nine-year tush has replaced her seven-year tooth, not too young or too old, in the prime of age Like a wild a** gone rushing through the reeds, dark-furred with fight-scars round the neck and face. Or like an oryx in his prime that feeds on bindweed1, the northwind round him wrapped and raging. But that was an age ago. I see myself born by a swift, big-bodied mare again Her frame firm to perfection, and her forelocks cleaving apart in the clearing of her face, Oil-fluid her every movement, her veins asleep, with a lithely gliding supple healthy shape. She seems an eagle ready for the hunt, to fill her nest with hearts plucked from her prey, Who spends the night perched high upon a rock like an old woman looking for her babies. Then there she is in the piercing cold at dawn, hoarfrost adrip from her feathers agleam with day. She glimpses a meaty fox out in the distance, nothing between them but one barren waste. She shakes frost off her feathers, then shakes herself alert, preparing to launch out for the take, Then launches aloft, swift as a hungry spear, aiming in one sharp swipe to fell her prey. He hears her wings, and lifts his tail in terror as creatures will do only when afraid. He spots her swoop, and crouches to a crawl looks up at her and bears his eyes agape. She takes him, flings him onto the brute rock. Now the prey beneath her lies in crippling pain. She lifts him up, then dashes him back down. His face is scraped with stones. His body breaks. The talons tear into his flank. He squeals. His breast is pierced. His heart her food. No escape.