Sol 6

  1. Why do you not sing, driver of the camels?

    Have you not heard Khansāʾ say yes?

  2. Is your heart a rock, or are you a staff

    that will not bend, or are you burdened with deafness?

  3. Turn back with your worn-out, heavy packhorses;

    loosen their tether, graze them, and sleep.

  4. Khansāʾ has grown somewhat familiar, and

    her aversion has relented; she has returned after estrangement.

  5. We spoke together at Kāẓima

    with bewitching speech, like that of Dhū Salam:

  6. a remembrance of love and its secret.

    Our enemies slept, and what was hidden about her came to light.

  7. And a night so bright that

    its wakefulness left the eye no share of dreams.

  8. We spent the night singing reproaches, while

    vessels of cool, sweet drink supplied our intoxication.

  9. And gentle faces unveiled

    their fidelity, though they had once veiled themselves in betrayal.

  10. How lovely was the long night at al-Ghaḍā!

    Its moons were full for us, yet it was not complete.

  11. And stolen moments of pleasure did not quench

    all our thirst or satisfy all our longing.

  12. Who will give me a day of reunion, or even an hour of it?

    If only what I had at Ḥājir had lasted, though it did not.

  13. Is that lightning over the protected land, or a rising light?

    Or have you glimpsed in my passion what you had never glimpsed before?

  14. My companion, if you wished, you would know

    who kindled the fire on the hilltop.

  15. Are the little ghaḍā trees still as we knew them,

    with spreading shade and trunks pressed close together?

  16. You are a son of resolve by night if you accompany me

    through the pangs of weariness and tedium,

  17. and if you ride the hazards of the desert with me

    as one who, once resolved, asks no counsel.

  18. How long will you sit beneath the steps of injury,

    an opportunity for the oppressive and plunder for the unjust?

  19. You count every ease as contentment,

    though contentment brings ease only while one is not wronged.

  20. Rush at the matter when you fear it,

    and rise when high ambition tells you to rise.

  21. Do not trim your claws while crouching:

    lions are captives in the thicket.

  22. If the place where you dwell grows base,

    turn toward the place of fidelity and generosity.

  23. Dawn has broken; what excuse has

    a night traveler for stumbling blindly through the darkness?

  24. The hand of Abū al-Qāsim has dealt justly in

    generosity, so heed no unfairness from whoever apportions.

  25. The scattered remnants of virtue and stray fine words

    have sought shelter in this companion's shade.

  26. Ancient glory has rescued itself,

    triumphing over the grasp of every usurper.

  27. Everyone anxious for his livelihood has found rest,

    and generosity, once dead, has risen from beneath the stones.

  28. And fractured pieces have joined together

    in the realm, though those breaches had not healed before.

  29. Radiant, he lets you see the full moon descending from him

    beyond the veil, and the crescent still veiled.

  30. Blessed in character, his face strikes

    a spark amid calamities when they are dark.

  31. His cheerful face gives to petitioners

    the choicest gift the steady rains give a garden.

  32. He threatened those who reproached his generosity; even if

    he gave what lay behind his ribs, he would not be blamed.

  33. The man who reproaches his giving seems

    to labor at heaping charcoal onto a fire.

  34. Those seeking favors told him, 'Say: My wealth is freely given.'

    He said it, without asking how or why.

  35. Regret has not gnawed at his fingers

    over generosity; giving and regret cannot coexist.

  36. How many a realm's restive forces were bridled through him,

    and how many a blessing flourished atop old age!

  37. They made a pact with him and he was faithful; they treated

    an incurable ill by his counsel, and it was resolved.

  38. They tested him as horseman and as companion,

    on the day of battle and the day they offered peace.

  39. His heart is the most sincere, his blade the keenest,

    when the sword is blunt and even a brother is suspect.

  40. Time has grown forbearing under his direction,

    though time is possessed by a touch of madness.

  41. His firmness gathered a scattered cause,

    while the horses' ribs cut through the rough ground.

  42. Smooth-stemmed in pride, his upright shaft has suffered

    no disgrace that could mar or blemish it.

  43. He comes from a pure stock whose glory

    time's sifting and the beating of ages have refined.

  44. Its sons walked above the summits of eminence

    and surpassed the ancestors of nations in merit.

  45. A house established in wealth; but for its might,

    the Arabs of old would not have submitted to foreigners.

  46. Among them are the landmarks of this land; through them

    this water flows, and the fire is theirs.

  47. May a complacent man be your ransom, son of the noblest,

    one whom lofty aspirations never seek out,

  48. content, through lowliness and feeble desire,

    with the fine clothes he wears and the food he eats.

  49. A title delights him though there is

    no meaning behind it when he is called exalted.

  50. He does not know where his supposed eminence came from,

    and so he looks a stranger to it, shy in its presence.

  51. He sought to wrong you and shot at you in envy,

    but the arrow's point returned to where it arose.

  52. He roused the viper in you; then

    his eyes grew drowsy as he begged for scraps of dreams.

  53. He stretched out an arm with no forearm beyond it,

    nor fingers, to rival you; he was humbled.

  54. Look at him, fallen on his side

    amid the wreckage of treachery and the stumbles of regret.

  55. He knows that, had his ribs been free

    of rancor toward you, he would have been safe.

  56. May the nights never drive a blessing away from you;

    how often you have tamed blessings that were wild.

  57. And you have never found an opening against an enemy

    without pardoning him, however grave the offense.

  58. Now Nowruz has risen with its good fortune

    over you, joyful and smiling toward you.

  59. It is the messenger of a thousand days like it, promising

    to deliver their full number to you.

  60. A day arrived standing among the visitors,

    and, while standing, serving among the servants.

  61. Receive it, then send it back to the one who sent it,

    honored, having gained favor and reward from you.

  62. Since I came to know good judgment, I have tied my cord

    to you; it has neither failed my hand nor broken.

  63. I have lived half my life among you, extending

    the hand of wealth to push want away from me.

  64. The days do not hope to diminish me,

    and I do not fear my time, however fierce it grows.

  65. It was you who lifted and raised me

    from lowly circumstances to towering honor,

  66. who planted me before any hand could touch me

    and watered my branch before the lasting rains,

  67. and who sought noble brides among my thoughts,

    for whose dowries the highest prices are paid.

  68. Each maiden has her youth with her,

    while with you what was sealed in her is opened.

  69. No healer wrote a charm to win her affection, nor

    were knotted amulets made for her for fear of treachery.

  70. They have filled the breadth of the wilderness with your praise

    and covered the farthest reaches of the world with mention of you.

  71. In them I gave you the purest parts of my heart,

    with the effort of Zuhayr's praise of Harim.

  72. Let those claims upon you not be lost,

    nor those pledges fail in your keeping.

  73. Do not direct my need to anyone but yourselves,

    for every provision is apportioned under your shelter.

  74. Draw my two ends close to you, for

    nothing wards off disgrace like my being gathered in.

  75. Make me forbidden prey, so that none

    but you may hunt me, as doves are protected in the sanctuary.

  76. Keep me close, for I am a remnant

    that will pass away, and time will give you no replacement.

Sol 6