Sol 6.1

  1. Good fortune—its signs tell us

    that the robe of its beauty has clothed your eminence.

  2. And glory has pitched a pavilion over you,

    and at your lofty gate is the resting-place of its saddles.

  3. O you under whose rule the eyes were kohled

    with safety, as they sought refuge in the coolness of your shade.

  4. In you Time has a source of pride that is not obscure;

    why not, when you have become one of its kings?

  5. For you are its lion and the luminary of its horizon,

    its surging ocean and the mountain of its majesty.

  6. How can praise encompass you, when you are one

    whose sandals the full moons long to kiss?

  7. Yours is a station of honor never attained

    by a king, however great his qualities of perfection.

  8. And yours is soundness of judgment, whose effects

    have been watered by the limpid stream it sets flowing.

  9. For the khagan of your age has come to follow

    your sound judgment in his important undertakings.

  10. And he meant you when he said 'Marshal'—how excellent

    a title, in whose full attainment you won glory!

  11. And one sign of favor is that you came to wear

    the collar of majesty, from the radiance of his bounty.

  12. How many necks have stretched high to attain it,

    and aspirations raced to obtain its like!

  13. Yet they fell short of securing it, while you were granted it,

    and filled your palm with its sturdy cords.

  14. And he clothed you with a crown, the greatest sign

    that revealed the hidden depths of his favor.

  15. Were lofty virtues given form and embodied,

    pure love would come to you from his favor.

  16. Thus you reached the summits of sovereignty, attaining

    a height harder to reach than the stars.

  17. You deserve all that has been bestowed upon you,

    and walked proudly, O lord of glory, in its robe.

  18. Who can rival Ahmad in his excellence,

    or who can weave after his pattern?

  19. Foremost in reaching the goals of noble deeds, peerless,

    possessor of virtue on the day his tether is lifted.

  20. A king proved peerless in lofty distinction,

    however much you turn your thoughts upon his affairs.

  21. He takes care to maintain his bond with noble deeds,

    and they take still greater care to maintain their bond with him.

  22. The awe his name inspires has spared him the need for his sword

    and for defending his palace with his arrows.

  23. His foes' defeat follows from their imagining

    his onslaught, and from the passing phantom of his image.

  24. A steadfast heart before which iron softens, and an onslaught

    that keeps the lion from his cubs.

  25. And a broad breast that holds vast forbearance,

    through which the offender finds his hopes fulfilled.

  26. And generosity that surpasses the clouds in care,

    for his bounty consists of gifts from his wealth.

  27. When the generous stretch out their right hands,

    he surpasses their bounty with his left hand.

  28. His land glories above all other lands,

    and within it the princes rose beneath his canopies.

  29. He displayed there a mighty host; adorned were

    its ranks with the lions among his heroes.

  30. And he granted his bounty to its revered mosque,

    and watered its withered growth with his clear water.

  31. And he endowed it with treasures of scholarly books

    that put the garden's evening fragrance to shame.

  32. You made them rise as stars on the horizon of your bounty,

    by which the night-traveler dispels the darkness of his perplexity.

  33. And you let the wealthy man's hand roam through them, and that of one

    whose hands had been shackled by his poverty.

  34. And through them you removed hardships from a helpless person,

    and dispelled the terrors that had struck him down.

  35. O king who fell in love with the heights,

    and strove toward them like a lovesick, distraught lover,

  36. take it to yourself as a poem—nay, a figurine,

    with wide, dark eyes, cloaked by modesty in its mantle.

  37. She was led forth as a bride; so exquisite was she that I thought her

    able to spare one of refined taste the need for his red wine.

  38. She could not recount in detail what you attained

    of glory, so she sought to sum it up.

  39. And rejoice in an Eid whose season has cast its shade over you,

    and its radiance too; may you live safely to see others like it.

  40. Thus—and had sacred law not fixed its time,

    the day of Eid would have broken free of its Shawwal;

  41. for every day of your age is a festival,

    your brow makes the rising of its crescent needless.

  42. May your reign ever be the world's adornment, and may the world never

    taste, through all the days, the flavor of its passing.

  43. And may you keep walking proudly in bordered robes of glory

    and joy, by Muhammad and his family.

Sol 6.1