1. Who will restore for me the ages gone by,

    and desires that proved beyond their seekers?

  2. I sent after them a lover's sigh; burning were

    his inward parts at the parting of loved ones.

  3. I sent after them a yearning lover's gaze; gathered were

    his sighs at the parting of his peers.

  4. Indeed, the gazelles' pastures were guarded by sword-edges,

    and their grazing herds tended the forest's lions.

  5. From every drunken-eyed beauty, whose bough bore

    two kinds: roses and jujubes.

  6. Well-watered, she made us wade, thirsting with love, through

    a mirage's gleam from her long-deferred promise.

  7. What a Bedouin woman, by God—she betrayed us!

    Hypocrisy is indeed the Bedouins' nature.

  8. The tents veiled her charms; even had she appeared,

    chastity would have been her most complete veil.

  9. And passion lodged her within her lover's heart:

    a mirage's gleam from her long-deferred promise.

  10. Far from it! The necklaces of his love-verse did not spring

    from hidden anguish, nor from afflictions.

  11. But they are thoughts that, when discussed by night,

    spend the night unfolding literature's blossom.

  12. It gladdens the reproachers that he abandoned youthful dalliance,

    in youth's first bloom, reproached by his companions.

  13. The gaze of budding-breasted maidens delighted him, yet you found him

    chaste in his inward character, pure in his garments.

  14. How often they said, when he stood in his sanctuary:

    'You and the sanctuary's statue are alike.'

  15. How lovely what was draped upon his shoulders

    by youth's hands—and/or what adorned him with my dalliance [text unclear]!

  16. Indeed, the threat turned him away from his views,

    until he shunned the delights of literature.

  17. Now calamities have fallen short and become,

    through the prince's bounty, blunt of fang.

  18. They unveiled for us, through his judgment and his sword,

    the light of a radiant dawn and a shooting star.

  19. A king whose right hand is filled with necklaces of praise,

    whose bounty fills the seekers' saddlebags.

  20. He added bounty to bounty for his petitioners, just as

    spring follows a cloud with clouds.

  21. And he pardoned, returning the gleaming swords to their sheaths;

    and he assailed, giving their blades another draught of dye.

  22. And he raced; the rest ranged between one short of his reach,

    lagging behind him, and another stumbling.

  23. You have built your glory; then act through one refined,

    the choicest among the tribes and peoples.

  24. And you devoted yourself to the Prophet and his family,

    until you gave them relief from their pursuers.

  25. Thus your support exalted the guidance remaining among them,

    and humbled the remaining factions, keeping them away from it.

  26. They alighted in your courtyard, dye-stained and honored,

    amid generous character and spacious courts.

  27. It was as though, there, they had settled in Yathrib, or

    alighted in Mecca, among hills and uplands.

  28. So remain safe, Abu Hasan, for a day of noble deeds,

    their clouds heavy, and a day of punishment.

  29. You had not shed fasting's garments in farewell [reading uncertain],

    before the breaking of the fast clothed you in a robe of reward.

  30. So rejoice in a festival whose lucky star has returned,

    unclouded in radiance, with its bonds made firm.

  31. And adorn yourself with it, the tongue's string of verse; for

    the tongue's verse is but the choice pearls of minds.

  32. Had it clasped al-Walid's hearing, this would have knelt before it:

    'Are these traces of a dwelling, or lines of a book?'

  33. Rather, had Ibn Aws contemplated it, he would not have said:

    'If only time returned the echo of my reply.'

Sol 6.1