1. My longing has endured—or has it failed to endure?—your parting
My crying, whether my tears flowed or not, for your loss

2. How my patience and smile have deluded a comrade
When he saw me, though my heart bore what he could not see

3. My heart commanded my tongue and my eyelids
So it silenced me, and my body sufficed to inform him

4. The skilled horseman, though unskilled, rides at daybreak
A pictured saddlecloth, pictures embroidered on silk

5. On it I compete with a figure in its drapery—
If I were that figure I would conceal myself until revealed

6. Let not hands that tarry above it—like Kisra’s hand, or Qaysar’s—
Violate the abode of the eyebrows, and of the crowned head!

7. They alight in one of the litters, swaying gently—
They left, but my heart has become a deserted ruin

8. I used to fear for them, before, from others
As if a jealous one could, by his fear, be guarded against

9. If I could, when their visitors grew too familiar,
I would keep every rainy cloud from dripping down

10. But when the clouds—kin to the crows of their leaving—
Make the skies between them pour down rain

11. And when the pregnant camel-litters pass, swaying gently,
Their beasts tear open for them green young sprouts, they browse

12. Bearing camomile—save that these camel-litters
Have led away a proud-necked tribe, rough-haired

13. At their glance, my wrist and my crown rejected
All basil plants, and my ring burst from my finger raggedly

14. Time has proffered its gifts, but I have not accepted them;
It intended for me, but I wanted to pick and choose

15. To ride the two yellow camels, for my intent—
That leaves the withered growth behind—has turned resolute

16. Were I to commit what my passion craved committing,
Your bright star would not have cloven the heavy clouds

17. O mother of excellence, most righteous kinsman, my solace,
By you I would dare the crossing of a sea of pearls!

18. The people give legal opinions by seeing you—far from me
That I should fail, or fall short of what befits your stature!

19. I have donned the bracelet—for what hand has triumphed?
What servant sings your lord commander’s praises?

20. If his cavalry and weapons do not deliver me,
Then when can I lead armies against the enemy?

21. By my life, his words in his pronouncements
Are the price that hearts are sold and bought for

22. War will show him no weakling in the fray
Nor any back-turner when onslaughts fade

23. His dye has unmanned the club-bearers’ courage
Though they wear ocher through rings fixed in their ears

24. The pliant spear takes pride over thick spearhafts
Scraping them smooth, it walks with a jaunty stride

25. O you whose missives precede the armies, when you arrive,
The squadrons themselves then wheel round in circles, confused

26. None shares your path when you ride your steed
Nor is companied, when you bestride your roan

27. Men culled words before their flowering prime;
But you cull words at the first tint of dawn

28. Rehearsed, such words grow yet more fair, but still
Once spoken, your silent script is most eloquent

29. Your enemies rent letters whose lines would reprove them, and saw
Spearheads, and keen tongues, and Indian steel

30. So your enviers called you “minister,” restraining you,
While He who created you called you “the greatest minister”

31. The attributes seen in you by the onlookers
Trailed after your words, like writing to one who can see

32. Consider how my she-camel vies with those
That carried saddle-bags and red bridle-leathers

33. She left the Thamud’s homeland and its rocky terrain
Seeking a tribe who kindle ambergris and musk

34. Her litters disdained resting places
Where they might stumble—and they strew no coarse perfumes!

35. She brought you her smooth paces, as if her feet
Were dyed red in saffron, into deepest night

36. She sped to you as if Time itself had found you
Perplexed in thought, rubbing hand with hand

37. Who can inform the nomads that, since losing her,
I have seen Rhodes, and Alexander’s walls?

38. That I have grown weary of the Notch constellation’s setting?
Who slaughters the shining full moons for a viewer?

39. I have seen Ptolemy, studying his books,
Raised up above, while stars careered below

40. And I have met all those called virtuous men, as though
God restored for them their bygone days once more

41. They set for us the measures of the calculus, set ahead,
And that happened when you came late, behind

42. Ah, would that a weeping rail-bird—her tears
Flowing—might look at you, as I did as I sped away!

43. And might see virtue itself no virtue can surpass—
The sun’s rising, and the clouds like pelican fledglings

44. Of all people, I stay best when I stay, travel swiftest when I go
Trade most profitably when I trade from town to town

45. Saturn, who deems the stars his tribesmen—
Had he hailed from you, his clan would be most noble!