She swoops down heedless upon the left-hand slopes,
Slender shafts whose very impact makes the earth give way.

Dark, bay-brown racers score the pebbled ground in furrows;
Not even the knolls’ high crowns can shield them from the blaze.

It is a day when the desert lizard keeps to its perch,
As though the naked land itself were sick of the sun.

Then the camel-driver called to the company, once the ash-grey locusts
Had begun to skip across the gravel: “Take your midday rest!”

Her forelegs, slick with sweat, swing to and fro—
Like black rain-clouds wrapping the bald hilltops.

They wheel as wildly as the arms of an old, bereaved woman
Who rises shrieking, answered by hoarse, grief-laden cries.

A professional wailer, her flabby breasts unbound—
No halter held her when they told her of her first-born’s death.

She claws her bosom with both hands; her tunic
Is rent at the collar, its fastenings dangling loose.

Around me now the mischief-mongers bustle, saying,
“Son of Abū Sulmā, you are a dead man!”

And every friend on whom I once relied asserted,
“Do not look to me; I have troubles of my own.”

So I cried, “Clear my path—may your fathers be bereft!
Whatever the All-Merciful decrees must come to pass.

Every son of woman—though his health endure—
Will one day be borne on a hump-backed bier.

I have been told that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, has threatened me,
Yet pardon, with the Messenger of Allah, is ever to be hoped for.

Gently, by Him who granted you the peerless gift—
The Qur’an, replete with admonitions and full clarification!

Do not seize me for the slanderers’ words;
I have committed no offense, though rumours about me spread.

I would take a stand where, were another to stand,
He would see and hear what even an elephant perceives;

And his very joints would quake with passionate awe,
Were no favour granted him by the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him.

So I laid my right hand—without resistance—
In the palm of one whose slightest word brings retribution.

His merest pleasantry inspires more fear in me when I address him,
For it is said: you shall be cited and questioned.

He is a lion whose lair lies in the rugged ground,
In a valley where one ravine is guarded by yet another.

He goes out to rend two mighty beasts whose fare
Is human flesh—dust-covered, shredded morsels.

When he grapples with a foe, he deems it unlawful
To leave that rival save broken and subdued.

Because of him the wild asses stay forever skittish,
And no pedestrian dares stroll through his valley.

Ever in his vale a self-confident man is left
With garments crimson and his bones laid bare.

Surely the Messenger is a light from which illumination is sought,
A keen Indian blade drawn from the swords of Allah.

Amid a clan of Quraysh whose spokesman, in Mecca’s heart
When they embraced Islam, proclaimed: “Advance!”

Advance they did—no cowards nor deserters were they in the clash,
No drooping weaklings who bend or turn aside.

They walk with the stately gait of noble, white-dappled camels,
Shielded by sword-strokes when black spearmen roar.