Sol 5.6

  1. My night in Tinnīs is the night of a fearful, suffering captive;

    nights pass away, but my night never passes.

  2. I say, as my night persists in stretching on:

    “O night, you and all eternity are the same.”

  3. Was it not enough that I lie cast away in Tinnīs,

    encamped amid anguish and sorrows,

  4. that I must also be afflicted by the loss of sleep? Since

    they departed, sleep has had no acquaintance with my eyelids.

  5. Whenever lightning rises from the direction of their land,

    I remember my days at Nuʿmān;

  6. and whenever yearning moves me toward Najrān,

    a longing for Najrān enfolds me.

  7. Make no mistake: Egypt, however far away, is nothing

    but the homeland of my delights and my sorrows.

  8. O nights of the Nile, I shall not forget you so long as coo

    the gray doves among great trees and branches.

  9. I yearn for little pleasures of mine that passed there with you,

    which I enjoyed while the eye of Fate watched over me,

  10. among noble, illustrious, radiant lords,

    at the summit of glory—men of Dhuhl ibn Shaybān—

  11. and a coquettish beauty who, whenever I wished, recited to me,

    and, when I wanted song from him, sang to me.

  12. I gave him drink, and he gave me the nectar left by his lips;

    his glance freely bestowed its bounty upon me and granted my wish.

  13. I kept plucking with my gaze the roses of his cheek,

    and longing to raid the apples of Lebanon.

  14. He kept drinking the clear golden wine

    until he pillowed his head upon his left hand and left me.

  15. God knows what passion for him possesses me,

    and what his transgressing glance has wrought against me.

  16. How many a day on the Island did I enjoy

    amid the clamor of flutes and lutes!

  17. May rain bless that night of ours—that day I enjoyed

    amid the clamor of flutes and lutes!

  18. May rain bless our night at the monastery among the hills,

    upon which the clouds of April poured their bounty through the night.

  19. The dew streamed down, and the garden smiled forth

    in brilliant yellow or deep crimson.

  20. The tender narcissus overflowed with tears,

    as though its eyelids were the eyelids of one drowsing.

  21. I ask God’s forgiveness for speaking with reason!

    What have I to do with reason? Reason is no concern of mine.

  22. No—by Him who, beneath all creation, made me

    a byword and enticed me with love of folly!

  23. Al-Shadhāʾī has no peer against whom he might be measured,

    nor any rival in the doing of kindness.

  24. His judgment is refined, his character praiseworthy;

    vast in noble virtues, generous, and never reproachful of his gifts.

  25. He whose delight lies in generosity and munificence

    is never left by generosity without virtue and beneficence.

  26. The sum of the matter is that he is a man

    who is mindful of God in private and in public.

  27. If I have said anything of him other than what I know to be true,

    then may I have denied the God I worship and who judges me.

  28. When his hand, writing, moves across the page,

    the page shines forth with pearls and pure gold.

  29. And when he speaks, his eloquence brings him

    whatever understanding and lucid expression he desires.

Sol 5.6