Sol 5.6

  1. The love-struck man's sickness has returned in his passion for you;

    Can he be sound, when its fits keep visiting him?

  2. His sighs have flared into flame,

    His embers blaze, their burning glow kindled.

  3. His yearning and passion are burden enough for the lover;

    Enough is the torment that love's anguish has wrought in him.

  4. By God, O doves, sing out—

    How often your song has filled the yearning lover with sorrow.

  5. Coo in lament: my heart will answer you with a moan,

    While its ring-dove keeps bewailing my thoughts.

  6. Never has love proved true in anyone

    Until his innards melt away from consuming passion.

  7. If the lover weeps, but not from an anguish

    That grips his very soul, then why does he weep?

  8. Tears glistening as they stream

    Reveal a secret whose disclosure harms his state.

  9. O heart, how were you caught in their snares?

    Did your sincere advisers not warn you against love?

  10. Do not let delusion carry you down many paths—

    The white antelopes and gazelles of that preserve.

  11. By my soul! A captivating dark-eyed glance has caused

    An illness whose cure defeats the physician.

  12. Will this physician find the way to my malady?

    Passion has ailments beyond number.

  13. The night knows what its breast has concealed

    Of my anguish, and what its reaches have encompassed.

  14. Through your abandonment, I have never ceased painting my eyes with blackness,

    Sleepless, while specks of pain make my gaze blink—

  15. Until dawn rends the robes of darkness

    And the darkness of night alters its hue.

  16. The reproachful man claimed my concern was his concern,

    Though his concern and trouble are themselves part of the affliction.

  17. The heart calls him to forgetfulness, but before it

    A caller of longing cries whose summons cannot be denied.

  18. Let reproach place no confidence in swaying me: it will gain

    Nothing from me but the frustration of its hopes.

  19. Love pronounced upon its people what it decreed,

    And its judgment and sentence took effect upon them.

  20. What pity for the enamored! Though they be

    Slain by your love, they are its martyrs.

  21. The malady of love was only a glance—

    In ardent passion, it is both sickness and cure.

  22. Among the encampment, after the travelers departed, there lay, for what afflicted him,

    A dead man whom the living mourned in pity.

  23. O his beloved ones far away from him, are you

    His nearest loved ones—or his enemies?

  24. He guarded affection—why, then, did you squander it?

    He kept your covenant, and his fidelity endured.

  25. For faithfulness you rewarded him with estrangement—

    Was such, in justice, to be his reward?

  26. The creed of love never ordained the law of a forsaker

    Whose rancor abandons true sincerity in his affection.

  27. For your sake I contended with my days and humbled them;

    The noble man's adversaries are the rabble of mankind.

  28. How foolish is Time's judgment: it thinks me

    One who is frightened when its great calamity strikes.

  29. Smiling, I meet the scowl of dire events,

    While others dread encountering them.

  30. I delight in the loftiness of my aspiration,

    And my face is graced by its reserve and modesty.

  31. Do not marvel at the age and its people:

    This is the age, and these are its children.

  32. The cultivated man is not one whose reason is unsteadied

    One day by prosperity, nor by adversity.

  33. Its events pass on: neither its hardship

    Endures for anyone, nor its ease.

  34. A day must come in which the young man rejoices

    And the pall of sorrow lifts from the afflicted.

  35. A sword may sometimes rust, and something may befall it;

    Then a smith tends it, and its sharpness and luster return.

  36. Do you not see how I once was, and how I had

    One whose bounty was the proudest ornament I wore?

  37. ʿAbd al-Ghani, Abu Jamil, and his son,

    And likewise his sons—and so his forefathers:

  38. A lineage by which existence was illumined, whose lights

    Shone upon the towering summit of its glory.

  39. God granted us an ample share

    Of His name, and so His names were sanctified.

  40. This is he whose giving is close at hand for bounty-seekers;

    This is he whose courtyard is spacious for whoever alights there.

  41. His pavilions are pitched upon the peaks of glory,

    And his radiance appears even to one in distant lands.

  42. If largesse is known, then it is his largesse;

    If lofty glory is known, then his deeds are its heights.

  43. An elder whom the distressed man approaches with a need—

    At his door, every limb springs eagerly to meet it.

  44. He ransoms his guest with his wealth and with himself;

    May my life and all the world's lives ransom him.

  45. Lion-fierce when subjected to wrong: his claws

    Draw blood, and his proud refusal blazes.

  46. In him is the lion's mighty violence,

    And the Indian sword's force and keen edge.

  47. For him a turban was raised above the stars,

    And his mantle encompassed the encircling sea.

  48. Speak freely, without restraint—you still will not attain

    What his benefactions deserve in praise.

  49. His kindness and beauty have dazzled minds,

    As have his majesty, perfection, and splendor.

  50. Such are his lofty virtues—what peers has he

    But the stars in height, and who could equal him?

  51. By God, his hands never gained a fortune

    Except for his generosity and munificence to consume it.

  52. Those in need set about dividing it among themselves,

    As though they were partners in his wealth.

  53. His acquiring riches is their loss to himself,

    For his wealth belongs forever to others.

  54. Morning and evening he practices goodness, and never cease

    His morning and evening to sing his praise.

  55. What radiant splendor breaks from that noble brow—

    Neither dawn nor dawn's lights break so brightly.

  56. Had the divine verses descended in his days,

    God—exalted is His praise—would have praised him.

  57. May God never exchange this age for another

    Until its earth and sky themselves are exchanged.

  58. In this age and among its people there is none like him—

    For its base men could never be his noble peers.

  59. His noble presence is wholly devoted to doing good,

    As though goodness, if you looked, were his nourishment—

  60. His food, his drink, and all he hears,

    His aim, his hope, and his serenity.

  61. Often the lightning of his raincloud flashes,

    Then its bank pours down and its water is spilled.

  62. At every rain-star his clouds lavish bounty,

    The bounty of clouds whose rain-seasons follow one another.

  63. Through his favor I hope to become

    One whose favor and gifts others may hope for.

  64. He is the house of chivalry, fatherly care, and generosity—

    Their abode, their place, and their vessel.

  65. Glory be to Him who created every noble virtue

    And built it into that house of lofty structure.

  66. The garden of sorrow, watered by life-giving rain, has come to bloom;

    Its beauties please, and pleasant is its air.

  67. The breeze bearing the spirits of the east wind travels to it,

    And all its reaches breathe fragrance from those wafts.

  68. Each evening the Lord draws rain over it,

    And its dews lavish upon it from a downpour.

  69. Spring has pledged it both its season and its bounty;

    Its autumn and winter pass continually.

  70. He has never ceased graciously bestowing kindness upon me—

    A patron to whom my allegiance is among my binding duties.

  71. It is as though a poet drank the morning wine

    Of praising him, his verse becoming its tawny wine.

  72. May God preserve noble deeds—and here they are,

    He and they inseparable: their survival is his, and his is theirs.

Sol 5.6