هذي المعارف منهم فتعرفا — Al Sari Al Raffa

These are their familiar landmarks; recognize them, you two.

And stop, you two; perhaps the caravan will halt.

If the clouds' steady rains forsake them, never have

tears that estrangement makes shimmer forsaken their ruins.

And if they lamented time's injustice, it has indeed walked

along their edges with separation, wearing them away.

The mounts of our joy were hobbled in their shade,

and how often joy journeyed there by night, then sped along!

In days when, if the beloved promised a love-stricken one

union, he kept his word; when he threatened, he broke it.

And a slender youth, like the sun, whose radiance made peace with

the darkness of night, or like a branch in his graceful sway.

He bestows deaths upon his lover; yet when he appears,

the two sides of his neck make him forget what he did before.

And it was as though he showed us, with his wine

and his beauty, al-Aziz's measuring cup and Yusuf.

Why, then, do the slanderers accuse me, when I only

shared with him tawny grape-wine that sets one trembling?

Meanwhile, the strength of the night's darkness had waned,

and the star within it turned a languishing gaze,

until its dawn unveiled itself, and I thought it,

for its radiance, the prince's character revealed.

A king whose dispositions are Time and its vicissitudes;

through his deeds, Time has wronged and dealt justly.

If misers scowl, his face beams;

or if they go to excess in withholding, he exceeds all bounds in giving.

Freely bestowing his bounty, following

his inborn generosity while the ignoble man must force himself.

And scattering gathered bounties with fingertips

that gathered lofty honors for him and united them.

But for the bounty of the lion's hand, there would be

only a bare, level plain instead of this glory's courtyards.

He glanced at his ally, who returned from him full of hope,

and assailed his foe, who departed from him terrified.

Traits gentler than the breeze, though sometimes

their south winds rage and become a biting gale.

How many a battlefield where his armored warriors found no place

to stand except on the bodies of men!

A cramped field: when swords laid bare its spear,

its driving forces raised a shrouding darkness.

You advanced there, brandishing a brown, slender spear,

supple, snatching away the souls of foes.

And when its forepart bent under a thrust

that gashed wide, another thrust brought it straight again.

May you remain safe for every well-known virtue,

which, without you, mankind would have taken long to recognize.

And wear the rare beauties of a praise-poem I embroidered,

as though I had embroidered from it a bordered robe,

from every verse whose wording, if it took bodily form,

you would see as striped brocade upon you.

And if your hand's generosity has paused, turning away

from me, it had never paused before.

I have been left behind in my share with you, yet I

do love having my thanks seen as lagging behind.