Sol 6.1

  1. Here are the doves—so stir delight and warble!

    And recall your former days at al-Aqiq, and renew them.

  2. And remember youth's vigor and its prime;

    It passed in sweetness, never to be renewed.

  3. The days of your revelry in ardent love and youth,

    Enthralled by love of oryx-eyed beauties and bashful maidens;

  4. The days of your pride in youth, wandering astray,

    Even if you saw the Mahdi's radiance, you would not find your way.

  5. Where the nights are illumined by the beloved,

    And the full moon strikes in the darkness with an Indian-steel sword;

  6. Where your night companions are all who steal reason,

    Each a supple bough of loveliness;

  7. And night—the night of union—is white and radiant;

    Had it not slipped away, it would not be called black.

  8. And dawn charged against the darkness as a duelist,

    Striking with a sword unsheathed amid the dark.

  9. The full moon rises in the sky like a shining mark

    That meets my gaze upon Muhammad's brow—

  10. The gallant, noble master, brother to lofty glory,

    Who stands apart from all mankind in preeminence;

  11. The peerless one, my greatest shaykh, whose summits soar,

    The pole of perfection, rising to the Farqad star;

  12. The Sufi gnostic, pure in his innermost being, who

    Attained purity through asceticism and detachment;

  13. The ascetic, scrupulous and pure, brother to piety,

    Peer of Ibn Adham and the most illustrious al-Sari;

  14. A sea of spiritual knowledge, noble virtues, and generosity,

    And the sweet watering place to which many come;

  15. Who adorned himself with praiseworthy qualities, unrivaled,

    When, in virtues, he stood without a peer;

  16. Whose heart's two eyes of insight were lined

    With the most beneficial antimony, drawn from the light of gnosis;

  17. Who remained swimming in the sphere of truth,

    Dispelling error as the most perfect guide;

  18. From accounts of whose qualities we have recounted

    Perfection's beauty, on the authority of the unique, peerless one;

  19. Were we to recite a verse of his excellence,

    We would hear throughout creation nothing but fine recitation;

  20. Who crowned gnosis through his writings

    With pearls like chrysolite and emerald;

  21. Of every hidden jewel; his pages

    Are of silver, and his ink of pure gold.

  22. Whose every rare jewel is a peerless pearl

    That puts to shame a necklace well-strung among necklaces;

  23. O pride of Damun, she has indeed revealed to us

    A sun that blazes for nothing but benefit.

  24. Had she not been the sphere of felicity, she would not have

    Bestowed a full moon, peerless in lofty attainments.

  25. She was ennobled by him, and good fortune was her mantle;

    And glory is a robe she dons and wears.

  26. So gesture toward her, even if her outskirts lie far away,

    With a kiss, as to the blessed, most auspicious Stone.

  27. She is the one who revealed, for our hope's pilgrimage,

    The sanctuary of acceptance and a Kaaba for the quest.

  28. And noble of soul, untainted by any suspicion,

    And of noble origin and lineage among the noble;

  29. And the cloud of his hand's generosity is a sea of bounty;

    So when it pours, it gives you drink from the sweetest hand.

  30. O master, I praised you, composing

    The choicest praises in fine verse.

  31. I polished it as a close friend of eloquence would;

    In it, eloquence's merit has not been denied.

  32. I sent it to you, faultless; and if it is faulted

    Among beauties, who has ever gone unenvied?

  33. So accept it, and remain safe in a life of ease,

    As long as one warbler answers another,

  34. Or as long as Ibn Fath Allah is enraptured by one who says:

    "Here are the doves—so stir delight and warble!"

Sol 6.1