night after night she snares men with her raven-black locks—
locks thick, luxuriant, soft, and freely flowing.

Her neck is a gazelle’s, and far from bare;
this morning it shines with strings of pearls and glowing rubies.

It is as though the Pleiades were hung upon her throat,
or live embers, fanned by a fragrant breeze, were blazing there.

When she strides out wrapped in a silk mantle (rayṭah) and a striped cloak (khamīṣah),
and crowns her head with a fine Yemeni shawl,

then, on the dawn of parting, she will show you hand and slender wrist
and a face as clear as the nobles’ dinar.

Had my colour been the rose’s, you would have loved me—
but my Lord has marred me with my blackness.

Do you hide the greeting the nāy whispers in secret tones—
the greeting of a heart consumed by love for you?

I followed her, her gait like a sand-grouse’s glide;
in secret she feared her people might speak.

She said to him, “Alas for anyone but you! I have heard words among them that drip with blood.”

In another poem he says:

If you elude death today, then know for certain
that you are pledged to meet it tomorrow.

I have seen that fate spared not Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—
nor anyone else; for each soul death lies in wait.

It is related that when Suḥaym grew excessive in composing love-songs about the women of the clan, they resolved to kill him. A woman with whom he was rumoured to be involved wept, and he said:

Are those tears your eyes shed for Sumayyah?
If only such feeling had been shown before today!

The wealth is yours, and the slave is your slave—
so will your torment be lifted from me today?

On the day she turned away and we spoke no more,
she was a gazelle at ʿUsfān, soft-eyed and dappled.

He was then slain—may Allah pardon him.