أرى همة تختال بين الكواكب — Al Sari Al Raffa

I see ambition strutting among the stars,

and a mountain of eminence, its sides hard to scale;

a lions' lair and a mine of nobility,

a refuge for the pursued and a seeker's goal.

Noble heights have captured the emir's mind; indeed,

they possess the minds of the noble and well-born.

At evening they take him among sharp swords and spears,

and at morning among gifts and generous grants.

A youth of Talibid faith, whose bounty has come

to brighten for seekers the face of their pursuits.

Arabs and non-Arabs shared in him, and he gathered

the glory of their chieftains and the marzban.

How often his swords have flashed in eastern lands,

their flashing terrifying foes in western lands.

You were greeted, despite the envious, with a garden

that bestowed on you choice fruits of every kind.

You received from it in advance what is granted beforehand

to all whose striving is fair and whose ways are chaste.

Fields of fragrant herbs, whose breeze is like

love's breeze in the days of union with beloveds.

Its channels are like chains of silver

as they flow between the east and south winds.

And a meadow: when rain tends it, its

gardens produce embroidery like that of fine fabrics.

And trees whose necks are adorned with their fruits,

round-bodied, with green tresses.

They pierced the soil to uncover its abundant water, and their

roots drank from a surging source that never runs dry.

Whenever the clouds give them a draught,

they mix the clouds' water with the sea's.

They bear stalks of fruit that seem,

when they emerge red, like the hands of full-breasted maidens.

And a vine that makes wine of the clouds' milk,

when it drinks the milk of the pouring clouds.

It has a keeper who keeps his glances keen throughout it,

fearing for it the wrath of calamities.

He brings the water-snake back to it whenever it turns

from its course, or shuns it like one estranged.

It has donned green tunics, and there droop

upon it heavy clusters with green mustaches.

Clusters equally watered, yet differing

as one with black cheek-hair differs from one grown gray.

Some are hailstones: none bares an eyebrow to the sun

from the shade without her flirting with it with an eyebrow.

And some are jet beads, through which the vine has run its thread,

though no piercing thread has passed through its strung beads.

Marvels that have become kin in taste,

though they are not kin in color.

You see water gliding among them by many paths,

like snakes startled from every side.

And one drawing aid from the Tigris's current, offering aid

to its banks, both distant and near.

It moves, though it never advances a step in all its life,

neither standing still nor traveling away.

Unceasing in its brisk motion, almost answered,

when it moans at night, by swiftly moving riding-camels.

Through the meadow, from its overflowing tears, flow

blades that put sharp swords to shame.

And an unassailable height, cloaked in cloud at morning,

adorned at night with bright stars.

It shines: were the stars to wander

astray, it would guide their paths through the depths of darkness.

It has battlements like silver mirrors, overlooking

far-reaching regions with distant flanks.

When they don the yellow dye of late afternoon, you would think them

drinking a shimmering draught of molten gold.

It adjoins grassy land smiling with blossoms,

and a sea of surging waves and sweet drinking-water.

When the hunter sets out early there and his

snares range far in pursuit of those wandering creatures,

you see daughters of the sea with embroidered backs

there, and daughters of the land with white breasts.

Fair provisions of blossoms and oryx,

toward which a seeker hastens, never disappointed.

One crosses with good omen behind one that swims,

and another has its extremities dyed with a dyer's blood.

And creatures secure: no beasts alarm their flock,

nor do the birds among them have bloodied talons.

They are a meadow whose blooms no lowlands brought forth,

nor did it grow dewy from streaming tears of rainclouds.

When they move among the thickets, you would think them

carpets of Kisra spread across the pleasure grounds.

And when they swim in swelling waters, their

marvels smile amid those other marvels.

And dark ones: when night raises its curtain,

it reveals pale faces among them.

When they perceive a human figure, they screech

as a writer's pens squeak upon the page.

Mountains anchored in deep water, yet

wary of the breaths of playful winds.

When they see a delegation of water, you see them

bidding farewell to some of it, gone, never returning.

A company travels to them through surging depths,

with none but their offspring as vessels.

They contain men on whom gray hair has played a strange trick,

settling upon their eyelashes and eyebrows.

Among them is dust stirred up by no hoof,

and horses that submit to no rider.

Wonders of a realm in Fana'il: never were

the wonders of a realm before them truly wonders.

It is the sanctuary protected from whoever seeks it,

with every polished-backed, keen-edged blade.

Abodes where error has never dragged its hem,

though tall spears have left so many trails among them.

Abu Hasan, may your affection always be my drinking-place

if ever my drinking-places grow distant from me.

We congratulate you on the recovery whose effect has taken

the place of morning light and deep, layered darkness.

It restored the gardens of praise, their hillsides lovely,

and brought back the winds of generosity, their drinking-places well-watered.

It fulfilled what the friend had hoped, while

its effects belied the warring enemy's expectations.

If you redress my grievances against the reversals of fate,

I shall never reproach them as long as I live.

To you, the radiant rhymes—not a thief's verse,

nor a fool's thought, nor a wood-gatherer's words.

Battalions of praise: if you hurled them against your foes

on the morning of battle, they would serve as battalions.