أذكى سنا البرق في أحشائه لهبا — Abn Nbath

أذكى سنا البرقِ في أحشائهِ لهبا

وجاذبتهُ يدُ الأشواقِ فانجذبا

The lightning's brilliance kindled a flame within his breast.

The hand of longing tugged at him, and he yielded.

واستخرجَ الحبَّ كنزاً من محاجرهِ

فقامَ يبكي على أحبابهِ ذهبا

And love drew a treasure from his eye sockets;

Then he rose to weep gold over his beloveds.

صبٌّ يرى شرعةً في الحبِّ واضحةً

فما يُبالي إذا قالَ الوشاةُ صبا

A lovesick man who sees a clear law in love,

And cares not if the talebearers say, 'He has fallen in love.'

نحا الهوَى فكرَهُ العاني فصيَّرهُ

بعامل القدِّ لا ينفكُّ منتصبا

Love directed his captive thought and made it,

Through that figure's governing force, forever upright.

مقسم الدمعِ والأهواءِ تحسبه

بينَ الصدودِ وبين النأي منتهبا

With tears and passions divided, you would think him

Plundered between rejection and separation.

ذو وجنةٍ بمجاري الدَّمعِ قد قرحتْ

وخاطر بجناحِ الشوقِ قد وجبا

One with a cheek ulcerated by the courses of tears,

And a mind that has trembled beneath longing's wing.

كأنَّ مهجتهُ ولَّتهُ فاتَّخذتْ

سبيلها عنه في بحرِ البكى سربا

As though his life-blood had forsaken him and taken

Its path away from him, tunneling through the sea of weeping.

يا ساريَ البرق في آفاق مصر لقدْ

أذكرتني من زمان النيل ما عذُبا

O lightning coursing by night across Egypt's horizons, you have indeed

Reminded me of what was sweet in the days of the Nile.

حدِّث عن البحرِ أو دمعي ولا حرجٌ

وانقل عن النارِ أو قلبي ولا كذِبا

Tell of the sea, or my tears, without reproach;

And tell of fire, or my heart, without falsehood.

واندُب على الهرمِ الغربيّ لي عمراً

فحبَّذا هرمٌ فارقته وصبا

And mourn for me a lifetime at the western pyramid;

How dear a pyramid I left, sick with longing!

وقبِّل الأرضَ في بابِ العلاءِ فقدْ

حكيتَ من أجلِ هذا الثغرَ والشنبا

And kiss the ground at al-ʿAlāʾ's gate, for

It was for this that you mimicked the mouth and the teeth's cool gleam.

واهْتفْ بشكوايَ في ناديهِ إنَّ بهِ

في المكرماتِ غريباً يرحمُ الغرَبا

And cry my complaint aloud in his assembly, for there is

One peerless in noble deeds who has mercy on strangers.

هذا الذي إن دعا الأقرانُ فكرتهُ

قالت عزائِمهُ ليس العُلى لعبا

This is the man: if his peers call upon his thought,

His resolves declare, 'High glory is no game.'

وفى الكتابةَ في علمٍ وفي عملٍ

هذا وعارضهُ في الخدِّ ما كُتبا

He did full justice to the scribal craft, in knowledge and in practice,

All this, though his cheek's down had not yet written.

وجانست فضلَ مرباهُ فضائلهُ

فراحَ في حالتيهِ يتقن الأدبَا

And his virtues matched the excellence of his upbringing,

So in both respects he mastered letters and manners.

ذو البيت إن حدَّثت عنه العلى خبراً

جاءتْ بإسنادِها عنه أباً فأبا

A man of noble house: if high glory tells a tale of him,

It brings its chain of transmission from him, father after father.

بيتٌ أفاعيلهُ في الفضلِ وازنةٌ

فما تراهُ غداةَ المدحِ مضطرِبا

A house whose deeds are well measured in excellence,

So you never find it faltering on the morning of praise.

لذَّتْ مناسبه في لفظِ ممتدحٍ

حتَّى حسبنا نسيباً ذلك النسبا

His ancestral ties grew sweet in a panegyrist's words,

Until we took that lineage for a love prelude.

وطالع الفكر من أنبائه سيراً

فما رأى غيرَ أبناءٍ من النجبا

And thought perused biographies in his chronicles,

So it saw none but sons of noble men.

يقفو أخٌ في المعالي والعلومِ أخاً

فبطلع الكلُّ في آفاقها شهبا

Brother follows brother in eminence and the sciences,

So all rise as meteors on their horizons.

من كلِّ ذي قلمٍ أمست مضارِبهُ

سيفاً لدولةِ ملكٍ يدفعُ النوبا

Each a penman whose strokes have become

A sword for a king's realm, warding off calamities.

أما ترى بعليٍّ مصر فارحةً

فلا عليًّا فقدناه ولا حَلبا

Do you not see Egypt rejoicing in ʿAlī?

So we have lost neither ʿAlī nor Aleppo.

مهدِي المقالَ لأسماع الورَى دررا

وممطر الجودِ في أيديهمو ذهبا

He gifts speech as pearls to humankind's ears,

And rains bounty as gold into their hands.

يصبو إذا نطقَ الصابي ويرمُقه

طرفُ ابن مقلةَ بالإجلال إن كتبا

Al-Ṣābī yearns when he speaks, and he is beheld

By Ibn Muqla's eye with reverence when he writes.

لم أنسَ لم أنسَ من إنشائِهِ سُحباً

بآية النظم يتلو قبلها سحبا

I have not forgotten, have not forgotten, clouds of his compositions,

By the miracle of verse, he recites clouds before them.

مرتّ بلفظِ فتيِّ الرُّومِ قائلةً

ما تطلب الرُّوم ممنْ أعجزَ العربا

They passed, saying in the words of the youth of Rūm,

'What does Rūm seek from one who has baffled the Arabs?'

لو أنَّ فحلَ كليب شامَ بارقها

أمسى يلفُّ على خيشومه الذنبا

Had the stallion of Kulayb espied their lightning,

He would have wound his tail around his muzzle.

تلكَ الَّتي بلغت في الحسنِ غايتهُ

ولم تدعْ لنفيس بعدها رتبا

Those are the ones that reached beauty's utmost limit,

And left no rank after them for anything precious.

حتَّى اغْتدى الدُّرُّ في أسلاكه صدفاً

والمندل الرطب في أوطانِهِ حطبا

Until pearls upon their strings became mere shells,

And moist aloeswood in its native lands became mere firewood.

وطارحتْني وشيبي شاغلٌ أذني

أبعدَ خمسينَ مني تبتغي الأدبا

And my ear conversed with me, while my gray hair engrossed me:

'After fifty years, do you still seek literature from me?'

يا سيدَّ سرَّني مسراهُ في نهجٍ

لنْ يستطيعَ له ذو فكرةٍ طلبا

O master whose night-journey delighted me along a path

That no thinker will ever be able to pursue!

هذي بديهتكَ الحسناء ما تركتْ

للسحر والنحلِ لا ضرْباً ولا ضرَبا

This fair improvisation of yours has left

Magic no sort of spell, and bees no honey.

متى أشافه هذا اللفظَ من كتبٍ

تملى فامْلأ من أوصافِهِ الكتبا

When I encounter this language face-to-face in books

Being dictated, fill the books with descriptions of it.

شكراً لأقلامك اللاَّتي جرت لمدىً

في الفضلِ أبقي لباغِي شأوهُ التعبا

Thanks to your pens, which ran to a goal

In excellence, leaving weariness to anyone seeking its reach.

حلَّتْ وأطربتْ المصغي وحزت بها

فضل السباق فسمَّاها الورَى قصبا

They alighted and delighted the listener, and through them you won

Preeminence in the race, so humankind called them reeds.