Sol 6

  1. Is your greeting aged wine, or eloquent speech?

    Is its blend pure nectar, or gentle reproach?

  2. Is your composition a string of pearls, or poetry

    whose harmony is adorned by eloquent expression?

  3. Are they full moons whose beauty is perfection,

    on nights cloaked in darkness?

  4. And gardens where souls find wine,

    and wine whose sweetness is the syrup?

  5. One day it is more delicate in beauty and meaning

    than meanings clothed in understanding.

  6. What scope have Aws, Ahmad, and Jarir

    to roam and depart amid its heights?

  7. Its wine encompassed us with wine;

    through it, dwellings and courtyards shone.

  8. Do not compare its light with flowers:

    what horse rules the thoroughbreds but Sakab?

  9. A thread of verse, as though it were verses threaded on a string,

    and a meter held within a surging sea,

  10. with rhymes like harbors

    and meanings like waves.

  11. It moves gracefully, like a dear friend's affection,

    adorned already by virtue and good manners.

  12. A master of pen, speech, and verse

    whom no eloquent orator can rival,

  13. with a nature that makes fine natures flourish

    and qualities that make virtues wondrous.

  14. O crescent that rose on the horizon of the azure

    sky as a full moon: there you are a star.

  15. All verse without you lacks sweetness,

    and prose without you is bitter.

  16. You have gained God's blessing, the favor of your Lord,

    as a reward; that is nearness to Him.

  17. God's blessing in you is the blessing of a life graced with

    divine guidance, with the heavens for its domes.

  18. It is no wonder that you attain a meaning

    when name and named are related.

  19. Meanings naturally have governing elements,

    which grammatical expression requires by its design.

  20. So when minds are sound,

    every deed they perform is right.

  21. And when roots are noble,

    humility adorns them, and they are revered.

  22. And when souls are great,

    companions toil to fulfill their desires.

  23. Every soul that strays from what is right

    on the path of virtue is blameworthy.

  24. The sun's radiance is light to the eye,

    yet in the eyes' sight it is a haze.

  25. Though brightness and splendor adorn it,

    blindness and froth have marred it.

  26. The learned jurist's proofs are principles,

    analogy, tradition, and scripture.

  27. By these the law reaches a point

    beyond which a judge has no answer.

  28. So righteousness, righteousness: if one among us

    is righteous, the corrupt will be called to account.

  29. Do not waste a moment that dulls the

    heart, for our small faults are grave.

  30. How often souls have slipped and gone astray

    through passion, while ruin ravaged them.

  31. Youth, the glow of borrowed beauty,

    and Zaynab and Rabab have beset them.

  32. Before long you will see the moment of an eternal

    judgment that leaves homes desolate.

  33. How many a blind man thinks these things are far

    from him, when they are near!

  34. And many a fool has died weakened by his own belief;

    now he knows he was the liar.

  35. He indulges in wishes, yet wishes hold the choking pangs of

    death; he passes on, and their taste is bitter.

  36. In this condition the mind grows heedless;

    if its own understanding restrains it, it is rewarded.

  37. So praise of it is unfitting

    while arrows of blame have struck it.

  38. Can a mind seek praise when it has embraced

    error and turned away from what is right?

  39. All praise given to those unworthy of praise

    is satire, deceit, and disgrace.

  40. Some praise increases presumption and pride,

    while other praise is clothed in piety.

  41. If you fasten the pearl of praise to someone like me,

    you will find a barren plain that answers with an echo.

  42. Salt flats give off no light, even if rain

    soaks their soil with downpour after downpour.

  43. How many a pool is thought to hold fresh water

    yet proves a mirage in the depths of exhaustion!

  44. Leave off, my friend—may my life ransom you—praise

    of people whose origins are dust.

  45. And join me in praising a God

    of power, for whom heaven is a veil:

  46. the cause of all beings, before and after,

    to whom belong reward and then punishment;

  47. a merciful one who came with love and forgiveness

    from a Virgin at whose threshold stand the heights.

  48. Mary the Virgin, daughter of David, yet

    mother of a Lord before whom necks bow.

  49. He adorned her with perfection in every virtue,

    and through her excellence the ages rose high.

  50. The people of the world bowed before her;

    in every direction of prayer, she is a sanctuary.

  51. Rise, my companion, and let us compose her praise,

    for praise of the Virgin is right to me.

  52. She is the mystery through which prophecy was fulfilled,

    and with her the choosing came to its end.

  53. So peace be upon her as long as thought pours forth

    in verse and tender reproach flows from it.

Sol 6