Ode LVII: In al-Jaww there are traces of

In al-Jaww there are traces of Bint 'Ajlan that have not vanished, though the time was long ago —

Of Bint 'Ajlan, what time we abode there together : and where do things ever remain the same ?

Desolate are they now : time was when therein were the lords of many hundreds of camels.

They have perished, and I remain after them, seeming to myself one that abides and shall not pass away.

O Bint 'Ajlan, how patient am I under troubles that cut me like the cutting of an adze !

Her mouth, methinks, is like potent wine, that bubbles forth from the jar, while the cup runs over.

She has, every evening, a censer [to incense her] full of sweet aloes, and hot water [to bathe in].

She is not one that has to rise in the night to light the fire, nor is she aroused to prepare the food : unskilled [in household work], she sleeps as long as she likes.

To-night the lightning has wearied my eyes with watching it as I lay awake, and no comrade has helped me to bear its burden.

Who shall aid me against a phantom that weighs upon me as an incubus in the early night, that makes anxiety cleave to me as an innermost garment, so that my heart is sick ?

Many the wakeful night I have passed through, which anxieties brought back again and again upon mine eyes :

I did not close mine eyelids throughout its length until it was ended : I watched its stars long after the care-free had fallen asleep.

Thou weepest over Fortune, and Fortune it is that has made thee weep ; and thy tears stream like a worn-out water-skin full of holes.

God grant thee long life ! dost thou know, when thou blamest me for loving her, what it is thou art blaming ?

Thou vexest a friend, and thou engenderest suspicion : thou hast one arrow in thy keeping, and another thou hidest away in the quiver.

How many a master of abundance have I seen, on whose possessions tyrannous Fortune has laid her hands !

How many a man, strong in his defence, lord of power, bears in his body the scars of the wounds she has dealt him !

While one is in prosperity, lo! it is gone, and to another misery is changed to prosperity !

One man is starting on a journey to an end far distant, when lo! he ungirds his saddle and stays where he is : another, abiding, has to hasten away.

A man has a Destroyer to bring him to destruction, O Bint 'Ajlan, from the falling of the decrees of fate.