Sol 6.1

  1. She unveiled, and a crescent of good fortune shone for us;

    And passion grew in my love-stricken heart.

  2. And she revealed to lovers a garden of charms,

    So modesty watered the anemones of rosy bloom.

  3. And she gazed with her dark-pupilled eye and smiled,

    Then the radiance of neatly arrayed pearls appeared.

  4. O lady of the kohl-dark eye, show tenderness,

    And lavish affection upon your lover.

  5. Be generous, if only with a dream-vision in light slumber,

    And grant union, despite a reproacher and an envier.

  6. I swear by what pleases you in true fidelity:

    I have not turned from you in forgetfulness or aversion.

  7. I am forever steadfast in love's appointed duty,

    Exchanging sleep for sleeplessness.

  8. So how long this anguish and my overwhelming longing,

    And my reproachers' joy, and the breaking of promises made to me?

  9. And how long this turning away from one worn out by love?

    Return, so reunion may bring my branch into leaf.

  10. And renew the continual return of our companionship;

    For nearness is my festival, and separation a threat to me.

  11. Leave off blaming me, O reproacher, for a maiden,

    Slender-waisted, who has surpassed all graceful beauties.

  12. An Arab woman—were she to face the full moon of night

    One day, the full moon would say, 'My good fortune is complete.'

  13. By God, were it not for God, the creator of her beauty,

    I would have prostrated myself before her radiant beauty.

  14. I swear by the light of her brow and by her beauty spot,

    And by the blackness of her hair and the redness of her cheeks,

  15. And by the bow of her eyebrow and the arrow of her glances,

    By her waist, her figure, and her neck,

  16. My abasement in loving her is truly sweet to me, just as

    My song was sweet in praising Ismail.

  17. He is vigilant; through his sound judgment Egypt has shone

    With the splendor of jewels upon maidens' breasts.

  18. And he supplied her with learning and benefactions,

    And gracious gifts too great to enumerate.

  19. Without him, she would not have attained, despite her foes,

    Her goal beneath his spreading shade.

  20. For her neck was indeed adorned by his presence,

    And for him she raised the banner of support.

  21. He paired inherited glory with new glory of his own,

    And bestowed honor with good fortune earned.

  22. Generous—when you alight in his quarter, you see him

    Ever yearning for the ways of generosity.

  23. By nature he inclines toward generosity and its people,

    Like the swaying of branches as they are bent.

  24. Speak of his bounty—how much it contains

    Of the largesse of an abundant, far-reaching sea!

  25. If the solid rocks were to speak,

    Their melody of praise would move you.

  26. He is the pivot of the circle of high honors, and the one who

    Has adorned the necklace of counsel with sound guidance.

  27. Lofty in noble deeds, a towering mountain of glory,

    Ever growing in glories, a proud lord among proud lords.

  28. Reviver of schools after their lessons had been effaced,

    And he clothed learning in the robe of renewal.

  29. O people of Egypt, how much eminence is yours,

    Which, through the ages, has become the shining brow of all existence!

  30. Come, gather the fruits of eminence from his garden,

    And take shelter in his spreading shade.

Sol 6.1