Sol 5.6

  1. Indeed, an eye of yours has wronged me;

    tears watered it until it drank its fill.

  2. Ah, for a piercing passion that has never ceased,

    and wasted bones worn away!

  3. The departing camel-litters and I, for longing after you,

    have bent our necks toward you.

  4. You are the stars; since you were hidden,

    by no lights but yours have I been guided.

  5. O dwellers of Fustat, if only I beheld you,

    the mirror of a tarnished eye would be polished.

  6. Or if God restored my scattered self through you,

    the hopes of a wretched soul would be blessed.

  7. Indeed, a land whose inhabitants are you

    needs no prayer from me that it be watered.

  8. For there are faces like gardens in bloom,

    and gardens like faces unveiled in radiance.

  9. May my father ransom the gazelle among you—the life of my soul—

    by the blades of whose glances I have been conquered.

  10. An enchanter of eyelids has broken his promise,

    so it is like temple-locks when they are curled.

  11. Tell him, O breeze, on behalf of

    the yearning lover’s heart, what it has suffered.

  12. Indeed, I have never divulged the secrets of love,

    nor folded away the garments of wasting sickness.

  13. Once my soul possessed endurance,

    but today I see it stricken by this love.

  14. I have an excuse for dwelling far from your land;

    my tears watered it, if it was pleased to receive them.

  15. Serving him—Musa alone—is my paradise;

    there, our homelands have been forgotten.

  16. A king whose majesty, once unsheathed,

    sheathed the swords until they rusted.

  17. In battle he is a fiercely blazing fire,

    and in peace, gardens ripe for gathering.

  18. He cares nothing that his purses have emptied,

    while the earth has been filled with gratitude to him.

  19. Receive the traditions of his grandeur—for they

    have been transmitted through the chains of my praise.

  20. He upholds this world and the Hereafter together;

    thus even adversity is content with him.

  21. Fair in outward bearing toward men—and before God,

    he has virtues hidden from sight.

  22. The tyrant bows in awe of him,

    and his subjects are tended within a sheltering fold.

  23. O sovereign of the faith and of this world, O

    choicest essence of glory that endures!

  24. Woe to your enemies—nay, doom upon them:

    a company whose eyes have gone blind.

  25. Every day, within their very livers, you have

    wounds that your lofty deeds have made bleed.

Sol 5.6