جزعت وأين سبيل الجلد — Abn Alsaati

جزعتُ وأين سبيلُ الجلَدْ

وهذا الفراقُ ونقصُ العددْ

I gave way to grief—where is the path to fortitude

with this parting and the dwindling of our number?

تلومُ على سقمي والبكاءِ

حنانيكَ فالدمعُ ذوبُ الجسدِ

You reproach me for my sickness and my weeping;

have mercy: tears are the body melted down.

لحى الله دهراً بغى ظالماً

وبالغَ حادثهُ واجتهد

May God curse a time that tyrannized unjustly,

and whose calamity went to extremes and did its utmost.

فلم يصفُ من كدرٍ وردُهُ

ولم تخلُ أوقاته من نكد

Its draught was never clear of murk,

nor were its hours free of distress.

رزُئتُكَ عيسى وأنت الجوادُ

عُوجلَ قبلَ بلوغِ الأمد

I was bereaved of you, Isa, the generous one,

taken suddenly before reaching your appointed term.

لقد بُهرجَ الناسَ إلا القليلَ

وإنك للخالصُ المعتقد

People have proved counterfeit, save a few,

and you are truly the pure, trusted one.

أتاك الحمامُ كأنَّ الحمام

أتاك وقد حكهم وانتقد

Death came to you, as though death

came to you after rubbing them and assaying them.

فللهِ أيُّ هلالٍ هوى

وللهِ أيَّ حسامٍ غَمد

By God, what a crescent moon has fallen!

And by God, what a keen sword has been sheathed!

فقدتُكَ عند وجود المشيبِ

فليتَ الفتى واجدٌ ما فقد

I lost you just as gray hair appeared;

would that a man could find what he has lost!

فسقياً لشخصكَ من راحلٍ

وأهلاً وسهلاً بضيفٍ وفد

May rain bless your form, departing traveler,

and welcome to the guest who has arrived.

وقد كنتُ أبكي لأدنى أذى

ينالك من قلقٍ أو سَهَد

I used to weep at the slightest harm

that reached you from anxiety or sleeplessness.

وأشفقُ من ساعةٍ لا أراك

بها فمنيتُ ببين الأبد

And I feared a single hour without seeing you;

yet I was afflicted with an everlasting separation.

فلا الماءُ في ظهر شماء ساغَ ولا

الظلُّ في بطنِ وادٍ برد

Neither water on a lofty peak was palatable, nor

was the shade in a valley's hollow cool.

وإن جزتَ قبلي طريق المدى

فإني على نهجِ ذاك الجدْ

Though you crossed before me the road to the end,

I am on the path of that same fate.

وإن كنتُ بعدُ طليقَ الردى

فإني قبلُ أسير الكسَد

And though I remain unbound by death,

I was already captive to decline.

حنى صعدتي يومُ فقدي أخاك

وأعقبه فأقمت الأأوَدْ

The day I lost your brother bent my spear-shaft;

and afterward you straightened the bend.

وأمَّلتُ ما فاتني منهُ فيك

مماتَ العدى وحياةَ الحسد

And in you I hoped for what I had missed in him:

the death of enemies and the life of envy.

خُطفتَ ولم يملأ الصدرَ منك

إباءُ أبٍ فيك أو جدُّ جد

You were snatched away before your breast was filled

with a father's proud defiance in you, or a grandfather's resolve,

ومن قبلِ خوضِ حشا غارةٍ

وشقِكَ ملمومةً من زرد

and before plunging into the heart of a raid

and cleaving a close-packed host in chain mail.

أهيمُ بقبريكما حنَّةَ

ولم لا وقلبي بهِ والكبد

I wander, yearning, about your two graves;

and why not, when my heart and liver are there?

فثانيةٌ مرُّها ما حلا

وأولةٌ حرُّها ما خمد

This second loss—its bitterness has never grown sweet;

the first—its heat has never died down.

ويا لكما فرطاً نافعاً

وإن ساءني في جوار الصمد

Ah, what helpful forerunners you two are,

though it grieves me that you are beside the Self-Sufficient One.

فصبراً عل قضاهُ الإ

لهُ صبراً فأحكامه لا تُرد

So patience with what has been decreed by

God—patience, for His judgments cannot be reversed.

فآخرةُ الخلق ما نالهُ

ووردُ جميع الورى ما ورد

For creation's final end is what befell him,

and all humanity's watering-place is the one he reached.

وقد كنتُ منرداً بالمُصابِ

ولو كان خصَّ بهِ وانفرد

And I would have been alone in this affliction,

had he been singled out for it and stood alone.

وإن كنتَ آنستَ بعدي أخاك

فقد أوحشَ اللهُ منكَ البلد

And though you found your brother's companionship after leaving me,

God has left the land desolate without you.

وما كنتُ أحيا على مثلها

ولكنَّه أجلٌ أو أمد

I would not have lived through anything like this,

but it is an appointed term or a fixed span.

وأنكَ من معشرٍ همهم

بغير ذوات اللمى والغيد

And you belong to a people whose concerns

are not dark-lipped, graceful women.

لها ميمَ كم أرمدوا مقلةً

بفضلهم وشفوا من رمد

Magnanimous lords—how many an eye they have made sore

by their excellence, and healed of inflammation!

وإن سكنوا لم يُخفْ عاصفٌ

وأن نهضوا نحو خطبٍ قعد

And if they remain still, no raging storm is feared;

and if they rise against a crisis, it sits down.

وإما تلا سابقاً لاحقٌ

فحسبكَ من والدٍ ما ولد

And whenever a successor follows a predecessor,

what he begot tells you enough of the father.

وإن طاعنوا برماحِ اليراع رأ

يت مديدَ العوالي قِصَد

And if they joust with the spears of reed pens, you

see the long lance-shafts broken into fragments,

بفصل القضاء وإيضاحِه

وعقدِ الأمور وحلِّ العُقد

by deciding judgments and making them clear,

binding affairs together and untying knots.

فوارحمتا لكَ من ناحلٍ

فؤادي لبلواه جمُّ الضَّمَد

Ah, my pity for you, wasted one!

My heart is full of bitter anguish at his suffering.

يُدير كليلةَ ألحاظِهِ

ون رام إسراعها لم يكد

He turns his enfeebled glances,

and if he tries to hasten them, he scarcely can.

فيعرفني دونَ تلك الجموع ويقصد

ني دون تلك الحفَد

He recognizes me, not those crowds, and seeks

me, not those attendants.

ويشكو وإن لم يكن ناطقاً

بإرساله اللحظَ أو مدٍِ يد

And he complains, though he cannot speak,

by casting a glance or stretching out a hand.

ومن لي لو أستطيعُ الشفاءِ بما

حُزُ من ثروةٍ أو صفَد

And who could grant me this—if only I could heal him with what

I have amassed in wealth or gifts!

وإني كنتُ وعاشَ الفقيدُ

فخلدَ لو أنَّ حياً خلَد

And I was ... and the departed lived,

and lived forever—if any living being could live forever.

سلوتُ الحسانَ فغيري سباهُ ما

شاقَ من عينٍ أو جيَد

I have forgotten the beauties; another is captured by what

enchants in an eye or a neck.

ولم تُطف ناري الثنايا العذابُ

وإن كنَّ منظومةً من برد

Nor have the sweet front teeth quenched my fire,

though they were strung together from hailstones.

وكيف أخفُّ إلى صبوةٍ

ولحمي بين نيوب الأسد

How could I hasten toward amorous longing

while my flesh is between the lions' fangs?

فيا موتُ ما لكَ من غايةٍ

تُرجى ولا رشوةٍ تعتمد

O Death, you have no limit

one can hope for, nor any bribe one can rely upon.

ولا أنت عن أحدِ صارفٌ

أذاةً ولا واقفٌ عند حدّ

Nor do you spare anyone

your harm, or stop at any boundary.

أخذتَ الشجاع كأخذ الجبانِ

وصائلةَ الأسد مثلَ النقَد

You took the brave as you took the coward,

and the pouncing lions just like small sheep.

فيا مفرداً من أحبائهِ

وعزَّ على المجد كيف انفرد

O you, separated from your loved ones,

how grievous to glory that he has been left alone!

سقى الله قبرَك من هالكٍ

وأنجزَ من برهِ ما وعَد

May God water your grave, departed one,

and fulfill through His goodness what He promised.

وألحفُه كلَّ فينانةٍ

نباتاً نظيماً ونوراً بدد

May He cloak it in every spreading tree,

with ordered growth and scattered blossoms,

وهزَّ مطاردَ أغصانِه

وجعَّد من مائه ما اطرَّد

and shake the lances of its branches,

and wrinkle its straight-flowing water.

إذا نثلَ الغيثُ منه السها

مَ ضاعفَ أدراعهُ أو سرد

When the rain looses from it its

arrows, it doubles its coats of mail or interlinks them.

وإن عارضٌ سحَّ ماءَ الجفون

فشحَّ سخا غيرهُ أو نهَد

And if a rain cloud pours the water of its eyelids,

then grows stingy, another gives freely or comes forward.

فأثوابه جددٌ لا تزالُ تـ

ـرفُ على سهلهِ والجدَد

So its robes are ever new, never ceasing to

flutter over its soft ground and firm ground.

لأدركَ بيتي خفيُّ السنادِ وقد

كنتَ علياءهُ والسنَد

A hidden rhyme-flaw has overtaken my verse, though

you were its summit and its support.

فما زرعُ حزنك عندي ذوي

وكيفَ وما ماءُ عيني ثمَد

The crop of grief for you has not withered within me;

how could it, when my eye's water is no scant pool?

ولما أطافَ بي اللائمونَ أطعـ

ـتُ الأسى وعصيتُ الفَنَد

When the reproachers gathered around me, I

obeyed grief and disobeyed folly.

وإنَّ من اللؤم لومَ الحزينِ

إذا ما بكى ذاكراً من فقد

It is indeed base to reproach the grieving man

when he weeps, remembering whom he has lost.