Sol 5.6

  1. When shall I see these days come to my aid,

    and time fulfill a promise never made?

  2. When shall the soul attain its desired end,

    replacing every loss with something found?

  3. I meet the calamities of scowling nights

    as one great boulder crashes against another.

  4. I have not yielded to passion in what it seeks of me,

    nor made merry amid flute and lute;

  5. nor have I turned for solace to limpid red wine,

    aged since the vintage of the clustered grapes.

  6. Indeed, I strain with longing toward my homeland,

    while the she-camels bear me, yearning for the deserts.

  7. How often, across those trackless wastes, I have been hurled

    by the hooves of those lean, long-necked mounts!

  8. If I should reach Mahmud and his brothers,

    I shall have won from this world all I desire:

  9. men of radiant countenance, bright as full moons,

    rising in a firmament of reverence and praise.

  10. Their noble qualities recount what their father once

    displayed of generous character and munificence.

  11. What a father he was—one whose peer is hard to find!

    And from him, by my life, came the finest offspring:

  12. sons of a noble man whose stock flourished among the nobly born,

    as the perfume of aloe and fragrant wood grows sweet.

  13. Whenever I remember his favors of days gone by,

    I draw the farthest reaches of song into his praise.

  14. In lauding him, I hung upon the neck of verse

    what is never hung upon the necks of graceful, secluded maidens.

  15. Then rapture, drunk with ecstasy, sings

    through those verses in the loveliest trills and refrains.

  16. Abu al-Khasib is abundant in noble deeds,

    an abode of happiness where Mas‘ud knows no misery.

  17. People leave his presence only in renewed prosperity,

    and the bounty of his hands’ generosity is a wellspring sought by all.

  18. You pray for him to win delights,

    and no prayer for him is ever turned away.

  19. My gratitude to him increases my favor and honor,

    as though I had cried, “O his blessings, multiply!”

  20. Whoever hopes in him may hope for all he desires;

    at his door, the gate of hope is never shut.

  21. Devotion to him flows through the heart of one who knows

    his excellence, as water courses through a branch.

  22. Whenever I journey, longing to visit him,

    I find my night journey praiseworthy—for Mahmud.

  23. And when radiant poems come to him, he graces them

    with a witness to his lofty virtues and their manifest proof.

  24. Those noble deeds are handed down from father to father,

    from one noble forebear to another among his lionlike ancestors.

  25. Bravo! How openhanded a man you are!

    Your favors shine white amid our black days.

  26. May the feast bring you joy when it comes rejoicing,

    adorned by the radiance of your presence.

Sol 5.6