1. I parted his eyelids from his sleep,

    And brought his passion and his heart together.

  2. And I spread longing through the twin folds of his breast;

    Its sorrows spent the night within his pillow.

  3. God bless the days of the dune! They have passed away,

    With his beloved, tender in love, and his heart's desire.

  4. Days when reproachers faced his proud resistance,

    Out of passion, while his loved ones met his meek surrender.

  5. Time's heedless moments—its error and its wandering—

    Were better for us than its guidance and rectitude.

  6. And darkness at Dhat al-Talh, where love turns white

    For longing's brother amid its heaped-up blackness.

  7. And earth whose knolls seem to spread their finery

    Between its finest slopes and its hollows.

  8. A perfume through which the winds pass, then clothe themselves

    In two perfumes, from their bodies and its saffron dye.

  9. Life's nearness there had scarcely kept my tears in check

    Before separation from it released their guarded store.

  10. And when the east wind becomes a lovesick man's provision,

    Then he wishes its ending to coincide with his own.

  11. And Time is like a drunkard in its mending

    Of whatever it sets about mending, and in its ruining.

  12. A shepherd for us, ravaging his teeming flocks,

    And a father for us, assailing his children.

  13. So its praiseworthy deeds go to its miser,

    And its blameworthy deeds to its generous man.

  14. And if it followed Ahmad's example with us, it would don

    Two mantles of his guidance and his sound judgment.

  15. A discerning man, unbounded in generosity; ever

    The flood of generosity is small beside his scant pools.

  16. A seeker of praise; ever fluttering

    Are the banners of his favors over the one who seeks him.

  17. If you are driven from shelter, seek refuge in him,

    Or if you are afflicted by Time, call upon him.

  18. He gives you what the edge of his keen sword gives him,

    And the points of his spearheads and the charge of his steed.

  19. He has never ceased ascending, amid his white swords,

    The peaks of glory, and amid his brown lances.

  20. Weary in his breast, he buys glory's rough gravel

    Always with his ease and the softness of his bed.

  21. I have said to one racing in his footsteps:

    You are a noble steed, yet not among his equals.

  22. Your rivalry came to nothing when his steed ran,

    And your blaze died down when his fire-sticks kindled.

  23. And if a man's plains have proved too much for you,

    Then lower your eyes from the peaks of his mountains.

  24. Nobility in which, whenever he strides proudly, you see him

    In the crown of his Tubbaʿ and the robe of his ʿAd.

  25. A house of Tubbaʿ, where the pillars of high honor meet

    At the meeting of its tent-ropes and its tent-pole.

  26. This—and a battlefield where, when a brave man plies the spears

    Within it, he goes away driven before his charge.

  27. He mixed the dust-cloud with blood, as though

    His saffron-dyed robes had been spread among his steeds.

  28. It loomed over me; its engulfing waves did not recede

    Except through his steadfast close combat and swordplay.

  29. Fasting has departed, and he has laid up from piety

    And worship during it provisions for his final return.

  30. Holding fast to truthfulness in his promises,

    Holding fast to pardon in his threats.

  31. May God accept his fasting in its month,

    And bring back the festivals he loves.

Sol 6.1