غضبان ينساني وأذكره — Al Sari Al Raffa

An angry one forgets me, while I remember him.

He sleeps through my night, while I spend it sleepless.

Through his injustice, its leafy branch never became

my share, while another's share is its fruit.

Love would have enough, if it could be content,

with what I have kept concealing and revealing.

No sorrow is apportioned among lovers

without my share of it being the greatest.

So I am swept away in a sigh I send aloft,

and swim in tears I let fall.

And a companion-star that never moves,

as though a king were nailing it in place.

And a slender youth, for whom minds fluttered

with passion: his dark-eyed gaze had singled them out.

If the gazelle has not bestowed upon him

the glances of its eye, then its fawn has.

He arrived with his wine, while his gaze

intoxicates it with languor, and it intoxicates him.

Red as a ruby, limpid,

and its red variety gives the ruby its glory.

For it was she who pressed out, for her gatherer,

her grape-cluster before he could press it.

In his cup is Khosrow; facing him

from behind the wine's veil is its Caesar.

It is as though she were fire, and those two were fuel

for her towering blaze, stoking it.

This one's Magian faith exposed him to her fire,

and that one's Christian faith made her lawful to him.

In a flowering garden, fragrant with spreading scent,

as though a perfumer were perfuming it.

Its ambergris-scented blooms rivaled its musk-scented ones,

and its gold-dinar blooms mirrored its silver-dirham ones.

And it resembled a pool left for us

by green plants, its green surface quivering.

Clear, as the wind stretches out its stride

and surges through it without clouding it.

Like a robe hemmed by its maker,

who sometimes folds it and unfolds it.

The emir raised an edifice of noble generosity

whose tenth not even a star can reach.

And generosity exalted him—that generosity in which

his thrones and his pulpit gained honor.

As though Quds, or his Mataliʿ,

had lent him dignity through its solemn stillness.

He brings clouds and darkness to the day of wrath,

and light and moonlight to the night of cheer.

As though he had insight into the unseen,

concerning each affair he brings in and sends out.

And when fingers are made to tremble with fear,

his little finger heals whomever it clasps.

And when a speaker stammers, tongue-tied,

and his bewilderment kills his argument,

he opens ears with the right answer, and no

deliberation has aided his ready wit.

For no meaning entangles him

in speechlessness, nor does any word confound him.

Every account of generosity is a lie

except an account of him that you recount.

Whenever his envier seeks to deny it,

his clouds and his seas bear witness.

And when a sea of battle surges over dry land,

with no crossing but the sword,

you see a host of valor with life-giving rain

from him, whenever his army looks on.

His only armor is his might, and

nothing but daring is his helmet.

Where sword-edges stumble over heads,

and its dust makes morning like night.

His white sword fells his enemies with blows,

and his brown spear destroys them with thrusts.

Haditha's herd, since it was protected by him,

is safe from anyone who would scatter it.

If he wards off from it whatever frightens it,

the forest is likewise defended by its lion.

May he live in victory, and may there live for him,

in bliss forever, his Muzaffar—

a son whose birth's blessings rose high

in good fortune, and whose purifier made him pure.

He matched his father in generosity and wisdom,

and his looks and inward character mirrored him.

O Abu Shujaʿ, O sworn companion of bounty,

whose lineage and stock are noble!

God knows how I praise what

you have bestowed on me, and how I give thanks for it.

Your bounty's promises are never forgotten,

such is your generosity; I need not mention it.

Yet a kindness you offer promptly

better befits that bounty than one you defer.

And your stature, if the utmost scope lavished upon it

a flood of praise—your bounty would engulf it.