ترى أي داء من فراقك أعضل

وأي المنايا من بعادك أقتل

What illness, do you think, is harder to cure than parting from you?

And what death is deadlier than distance from you?

وأي الأماني دون قربك تجتلى

فتحسن أم أي المآرب تجمل

And which hopes, without your nearness, can be beheld

and seem lovely? Or which aims can be fair?

بعدت فما روض المحاسن ناضر

ولا الظل ممتد ولا الماء سلسل

You went away: no garden of beauty is verdant,

no shade stretches wide, no water flows sweetly.

ولا الدهر إلا جالب خيل حربه

على ودهماء الحوادث جحفل

Time does nothing but bring the cavalry of its war

against me; the dark host of calamities is a vast army.

أبعدك يصفو لي من العيش مورد

وعندك لي هذه المجرة منهل

After your departure, can any spring of life run clear for me,

when beside you this Milky Way is my drinking place?

شربت دماً إن لم أذم لياليا

أرتنا سرار البدر من حيث يكمل

May I drink blood if I fail to condemn the nights

that showed us the full moon's dark phase just where it reaches fullness.

وان هو لم يأفل عن القلب ساعة

فعن ناظري لا يأفل الدهر بأفل

Though it has not set from my heart for a moment,

it has vanished from my eyes—may it never set through all time.

أظن النوى ما فوقت من سهامها

تلقاه من شملي وشملك مقتل

I think whatever arrows separation has nocked

have found a vulnerable spot in the bond between us.

والا غصبنا البيد ما في نفوسها

وغاية ما فيها رغام وجندل

Or else we have robbed the wastes of what they harbor within,

and the utmost they contain is dust and stones.

فما بالنا والأرحبيات ترتمي

بنا في فيافيهن اير وارجل

What is our plight, as Arhabian she-camels hurtle,

carrying us through their wastes on forelegs and hindlegs,

بليل كأن الشهب فيه اسنة

مقومة اطرافها وهو قسطل

through a night whose stars are like spearheads,

their tips set straight, while the night is battle-dust?

على أن ارضي أي ارض حللتها

ومرعى سوامي مخصب اين ترقل

Yet any land in which I settle is my land,

and my grazing herds find fertile pasture wherever they trot.

وكل طريق للمهذب مهيع

وفي كل ارض للأكارم منزل

Every road lies open to the refined,

and in every land the noble have a home.

ولكن عيناًلا تراك سخينة

وسمع يحليه سواك معطل

But an eye that does not see you is hot with grief,

and an ear adorned by anyone else is left unadorned.

لعل وجيف اليعملات وجوبها

سباريت ما جابت بها الشم شمأل

May the racing of tireless she-camels, and their crossing

of barren wastes where no north wind has traversed the lofty peaks,

وسرعة تقريب السراحيب في دجى

يضل بها الكدري طرفاً ويذهل

and the swift canter of long-limbed steeds through darkness

where the dusky sandgrouse loses its way for a blink, bewildered—

يقصر عن ادراكها البرق غاية

وتهزأ بالنكباء شوطاً وتهزل

lightning falls short of catching them at the finish,

and they mock the crosswind in a race, making sport of it;

لها من اديم الليل ثوب ونجمه

شياة وعندي بالأهلة تُنعَل

their robe is made of night's hide, and its stars are

their markings; to my mind, they are shod with crescents;

ومن رام في أمر معيناً على المنى

والا المنايا فالأغر المحجل

whoever seeks, in any venture, a helper toward his hopes,

or else toward death, should choose the white-blazed, white-stockinged steed—

يبلغني المولى الأمير محمداً

وحسبي مُني منهن ما كنت اسأل

bring me to my lord, Prince Muhammad;

and enough for me of the wishes they grant is what I sought.

فأني متى ابلغ حماه عقلتها

وليست يمينا دون ذلك تعقل

For whenever I reach his sanctuary, I shall hobble them;

and before that, by oath, they shall not be hobbled.

شجاع إذا استصرخته لملمة

اجابك فيها ضاحكاً يتهلل

A brave man: when you cry to him for help in a calamity,

he answers you amid it, laughing, his face radiant.

كأن به في كل منبت شعرة

بدا منها فيها للحوادث منصل

As though, at every root of a hair upon him,

a blade has sprung forth there to face calamities.

تنام ظُبا الرعديد ملء جفونها

وسيف ابن سيفا ساهر يتململ

The coward's blades sleep soundly within their sheaths,

while Ibn Sayfa's sword is sleepless, stirring restlessly.

وتجمد اموال اللئام وماله

وان كان من نوع الجمادات يهطل

The wealth of the ignoble congeals, while his wealth,

though it belongs among solid things, rains down.

وان امرءً لا يألف البأس والندى

فليس عليه في الزمان معول

A man unaccustomed to valor and generosity

is no one on whom to rely in this world.

لك الخير تحصى المجد احصاء عاقل

وتعطى الندى اعطاء من ليس بعقل

Good fortune be yours! You reckon glory like a prudent man,

yet bestow bounty like one without reason.

وتقدم في الهيجا المنايا إلى العدا

وتحجم في اخذ السبايا وتخجل

You send deaths forward to the enemy in battle,

yet hang back, ashamed, from taking women captive.

خلائق من ساس الزمان وأهله

وابصر حال الدهر كيف يحول

These are the traits of one who governed time and its people

and saw how the condition of the age changes.

سبقت إلى غايات كل فضيلة

فأنت أخير في المكارم أول

You reached the furthest limits of every virtue first;

so you are last, yet first in noble deeds.

وجدت بما لو جاد غيرك بعضه

لقلنا به بخل وحاشاك تبخل

You have given what, had another given part of it,

we would have said he was miserly—far be it from you to be miserly!

سوابق جرد تحت مرد تسربلوا

سوابغ سرد ذاد عنها السموأل

Fleet, sleek horses beneath beardless youths clad

in full-length linked mail, which al-Samaw'al defended;

وبيض كأن القين اودع غمدها

ضرام لهيب فيها للماء جدول

and gleaming swords, as though the smith had placed within their sheaths

a blazing flame, with a stream of water within them.

تربك بمتنيها الفرند كأنه

على لبة الحسناء عقد مفصل

They show you the watered pattern on their two faces, as though it were

a necklace of spaced jewels on a beauty's breast.

وذي غلة سمراء ما نقعت صدا

بغير دم منه تعل وتنهل

And a thirsty brown spear that never quenched its thirst

except with blood, from which it drinks and drinks again.

إذا خطرت في الروع لم يبق لوّم

على حب هيفاء القوام وعذل

When it sways amid battle's terror, no reproach remains

for loving a slender-waisted beauty, nor any censure.

ومن لي بأن أروي نداك مفصلا

إذا كان يعي حصره وهو مجمل

Who can help me recount your generosity in detail,

when even a summary of it defies enumeration?

أمولاي آمالي لديك كثيرة

وفضلك يأبى أن يخيب المؤمل

O my lord, my hopes in you are many,

and your grace refuses to disappoint the hopeful.

ولولاك لم البس رجاي جلاببا

على أن ثوب اليأس بالناس أجمل

But for you, I would not clothe my hope in robes,

although despair's garment better becomes mankind.

وكم لك عندي من قديم مودة

صحيح لنا فيها الحديث المسلسل

How much long-standing affection I bear you,

whose account, linked in an unbroken chain, is sound between us;

وصدق ولاء تدعيه عصابة

أقول بها لكنها تتقول

and true loyalty, which a band lays claim to:

I profess it, but they merely make false claims.

هنيئاً لمثلي حيث مثلك ركنه

وسعداً لمن مثلي به يتغزل

Happy is one like me, when one like you is his support;

and fortunate is he of whom one like me writes love verses.

فأنت تجيد الجود والمجد والغنى

واني اجيد الحمد والحمد افضل

For you excel in generosity, glory, and wealth,

while I excel in praise—and praise is better.

ولو كنت في الماضي بالدهر لم يكن

بغير نظامي في الورى يتمثل

Had you lived in bygone times, no one

among mankind would cite anything but my verse.

فداؤك من تأبى المنية نفسه

ويعلم ان العمر وقت مؤجل

May one whose soul shuns death be your ransom,

though he knows that life is a term with an appointed end.

على سفر في الدهر نحن وانما

نخيم في الدنيا قليلا ونرحل

We are travelers through time, and merely

camp briefly in this world, then depart.

ويغلبنا فيها الرجاء واننا

نؤمل ما يعيي به المتأمل

Hope overcomes us here, and we

hope for what exhausts the contemplative mind.

ومن علم الأيام علمك لم يكن

له خلة إلا التقى والتفضل

Whoever knows the days as you do would have

no trait but piety and generosity.

بقيت بقاء الحمد فيك فأنني

أرى المرء يمضي والمحامد تقبل

May you endure as long as praise of you endures; for I

see a man pass away while his praises come forth.

ودمت دوام الفضل منك فأينما

تنافلت الركبان فضلك ينفل

May you last as long as bounty flows from you; wherever

riders exchange gifts, your bounty is bestowed.

ولا فقد الأقوام منك سميدعا

يقول إذا اشتد الخصام ويفعل

May the peoples never lose in you a noble leader

who speaks when strife grows fierce, and acts.