وَوَادٍ كَجَوْفِ الْعَيْرِ قَفْرٍ قَطَعْتُهُ
بِهِ الذِّئْبُ يَعْوِي كَالْخَلِيعِ الْمُعَيَّلِ
“And many a desolate valley, hollow as the inside of an ass, have I crossed, while in it a wolf howled like an outcast burdened with dependents.”
Wādin ... qafrin is a valley nearly devoid of habitation and life. Ka-jawfi al-ʿayr intensifies the impression of hollowness; bihi al-dhiʾbu yaʿwī sets a single plaintive voice inside that vast silence.
The simile ka-l-khalīʿ al-muʿayyal compares the wolf with a person cut off from his community who must still support dependents. The wilderness is therefore not merely an empty landscape: its sound also evokes social exclusion and need.