أبا العمر خيم أم بالحشاء — Al Sari Al Raffa

Did he encamp at al-ʿUmr, or within my heart?

Near when the caravan sleeps, yet far away.

He visited while night's garment was growing threadbare,

and morning's garment was newly radiant.

His flashing lights al-Khayf for us,

yet it is no lightning flash gleaming from a veil.

A fidelity cut short by waking—

and how many an awakening has swept fidelity away!

Your days passed, worthy of praise,

in closeness of union and distance from estrangement,

and left a grief that no sorrows could put an end

to, and an illness far from cure;

and a longing I battle at al-Liwa,

as one battles an adversary beneath the banner;

and a patience that, when the heart's passion rose,

I clung to as though to drifting dust.

Whomever Time has deceived, you will find

humbled by tears, with solace hard to find.

Gray hair revealed itself to those eyes,

giving them an eyesore in place of brightness.

How many a time we trailed through it

the cloak of leisure, as cloaks are trailed;

and yielding ones for whom we brandished

the singing girls' hairpins to spill blood.

The foreigner had ranged their bodies

along the walls, like ranks arrayed for battle.

We extend men's hands toward them,

and they return like women's hands.

And a place whose waters curl whenever

the wind clasps its streams, whose air is smooth:

we went at dawn, its blossoms like striped cloaks,

and returned at evening, its dunes like mantles.

Wild beasts faced us in a meadow,

as the stars of heaven have faced you.

Is there any way to revive it,

when the horses of ease galloped through it,

and its moons, when they revealed to it

the dawn through their charms, were at peace with evening?

And to renew them by trailing skirts,

and wineskins dragging over the skin of open ground;

and urging the wine onward, when weary grew

its mounts, with varied arts of song;

and our scattering the gathered herd of gazelles

with sleek-bodied ones like a herd of gazelles?

When pursued, they are racing steeds;

and when pursuing, ships of swift flight.

How many a friend saw my poverty

and turned away, though we had been friends in pure affection.

And a red one, mingled within her bower

with the water of ardor, the water of splendor,

warns me of my death on night journeys—

but was I safe from it while staying put?

And strange it is that the ally of debauch-

ery is allied with the poverty of prophets.

He will win his wishes by driving

toward Ibn al-Muzaffar the pale camels of hope.

We called on the scatterer of gathered gifts

in generosity, and the gatherer of all praise;

and one young in years who established generosity,

thus giving chivalry the full due of youth,

with a hand that makes the water of life shimmer,

and a face that makes the water of modesty shimmer.

He cast off pride, except before an envier

whom the mantle of arrogance tugs to and fro.

He triumphed, without overreaching in his course,

on the morning of the contest, with a far-flying arrow.

As though his qualities, in their fragrance

and radiance, were perfume amid blazing light.

He has resolves that blunt swords

and far outstrip the reach of fate;

and a generosity which, were it a rain cloud,

would assure the earth of riches from it.

I lodged within his precincts, at a dwelling

with fertile surroundings and a spacious courtyard.

There he set the wind of generosity blowing for us,

gently, telling us of prosperity.

An unyielding man: Time's vicissitudes are humbled

before him, yielding after defiance.

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And a generous man, lavish in noble deeds,

so that his hands covered the veil of giving.

And steadfast, whenever the nights assailed him

with a wind whose deadly gusts were the north wind.

As though calamities, whenever they assailed him,

fell away along the two slopes of Hira.

The illustrious of Yaʿrub built his glory,

and he chose to raise that edifice higher.

May you endure! How many a virtue you have

with which you clothed glory in the robe of permanence.

And many a day its horsemen came to drink

at death's pools, as the thirsty come to water;

as though its sharp swords amid the dust

were lightning flashes rending the veils of cloud.

Full coats of mail appeared in its two battle zones,

as a north wind swept across pools.

As though the armored warriors, through their gleam,

were plundering the limbs of the late-morning sun.

Amid its dust, there shone before your eyes

the Mashrafi swords' radiance, lighting the path of glory.

And whenever greatness put you to the test,

you were well able to scatter adversity's gathered host.

So adorn yourself, Abu Ahmad, with an ornament

everlasting, with no end,

setting enemies' hearts ablaze with rage

and filling friends' hearts with cool relief.

I called on you while Time was clad in armor,

mingling bravery against me with cunning.

So you were worthy of wealth's distinction,

and I was worthy of distinction in service.