لما مضى يومك في اللذات — Al Sari Al Raffa

When your day had passed amid pleasures,

and amid delight that made the hours a marvel,

and night arrived at its appointed time,

and the West unfurled the rain-withholding clouds,

and spread them until they stood like landmarks,

we rose for the hunt with steeds that drove the quarry from cover,

like radiant full moons rising,

which you would imagine overlaid with gold,

with saddles blazing like meteors,

upon thunderers and lightning-flashers,

resplendent as vegetation in bloom;

the oryx of the wilderness were terrified by them.

And hounds beyond all power of description,

gaunt-bellied and swift to seize,

thirsting for the blood of game,

their long, ample ears spread wide,

their edges drooping, motionless,

earringed with pearls of dew.

Then a herd and massed companies came into view,

their crowns and markings much alike.

You saw the lances crowded close,

already cloaked in parted-open mantles

that revealed the dazzling white of bellies and breasts;

and among them the crowns of their heads adorned them,

while fatness ringed them, fold upon fold.

They never ceased bellowing, bewildered,

shuffling like fettered captives,

blinded to the paths of escape.

Then we made the curved blades clasp

their throats, massed like a shepherd's flock,

until, when the coming dawn appeared,

and the East unfurled saffron-dyed rays,

they swooped downward until they turned golden.

We rose with them—white blades drawn bare,

which the eye would think silvered;

and from those beasts they returned blood-dyed.

Then up rose our cauldrons—the ones

sought alike in plenty and in times of hardship.

You saw the daughters of water boiling,

rising from them above the rims,

floating like great letter rāʾs.

They, and all the food within them,

were for the guest, the neighbors, and the neighbor-women.