Sol 5.6

  1. An ardent lover has, in love, much to expound and dictate;

    and in his ways are inspiration and allusion.

  2. He regards his censorious friends as

    his enemies, though sincere in their reproach.

  3. Umayma departed from him, and in anguish shrank

    within him, at her parting, my liver and entrails.

  4. Fair as the sun, dark-lipped where kisses are sipped,

    slender where the sash lies, full in the hips, with dusky lips.

  5. A kiss sipped from her heals the wound her glance has opened

    in my heart: thus for me she is both cure and maladies.

  6. As though her smiling teeth were pearls, and her saliva

    rain-cloud water into which tawny wine had been poured.

  7. Her lovers are not dead there among the—

    dead, nor are they alive among the living.

  8. The departing litters stirred your longing for the encampment when you saw them off,

    as did a desolate campsite, like a tattoo upon a forearm.

  9. Its dwellers had left it at dawn, making it desolate;

    after its dawn-departing dwellers came emptiness.

  10. Across the open spaces of its grounds a wayward wind trailed its skirts,

    one of the trace-effacing winds, after the tribe had gone.

  11. Rain thundered there, and the life-giving shower poured over it

    from rain-heavy clouds hanging low at eventide,

  12. until the low herbs laughed there, smiling

    with their blossoms—thus it grew luxuriant with flowers.

  13. As though, at evening, it had been watered from

    the two palms of Abū al-ʿArab, the surpassingly generous, by rain-bringing stars.

  14. Blessed of countenance, sought by all; encircling him

    in the royal dais’s halo are illustrious men and blessings.

  15. He guarded the realms from the rebels’ violence; indeed,

    within his sanctuary wolf and sheep became equals.

  16. He secures for himself victory and unassailable glory

    through calm deliberation, prudent planning, and counsel.

  17. His ranks rose above the heavens, above the—

    Gemini; and thus, above Gemini, stands another Gemini.

  18. Through him, proudly towering over the Green One—Heaven—is

    his dust-brown earth; beside the Green Heaven, it is green.

  19. With wisdom’s eye he sees what lies in the unseen, while

    reports alert him through the tongues of thought.

  20. He has banners of glory that have risen and soared,

    and proud might, unyielding in glory’s towers.

  21. O you whose nature toward petitioners and obedient followers,

    and toward the hungry, is the same in ease and adversity!

  22. But for you, for learning and Islam there would have risen no

    sun, nor would oppression’s darkness have been dispelled.

  23. For good and evil alike were created in your two hands,

    like a cloud that holds both fire and water.

  24. You are the peerless one, the sole man of the age; you have no

    equal, and among kings your like is the phoenix.

Sol 5.6