Sol 5.6

  1. The traces of encampments at Rawma have worn away.

    They stirred lovesick longing and awakened my old passion.

  2. They summoned pearls of tears, and my eyes poured them forth;

    I questioned them, but they uttered not a word.

  3. Rebuke desire—or let your tears weep for it;

    turn toward the pathways of destruction, and halt there.

  4. Leave her ruins to time and decay:

    their landmarks stand empty, as though never inhabited.

  5. How many a pleasure-loving companion I joined over wine

    in a fresh, untouched meadow, fragrant to the nostrils,

  6. with golden wine pressed from the grapes, which I clothed

    in limpid water from the gushing rain-clouds.

  7. When it was mixed, the bubbles clustered around it and embroidered it,

    until its ornament seemed a harvest of narcissus blossoms.

  8. It seemed—as the water sought to temper it—

    a flame buffeted by the east wind in a brazier.

  9. She grew wanton; he humored her folly, and she smiled,

    revealing a draught tawny as a blue-gray eye.

  10. All people, to my mind, were one;

    then temperaments proved different within their souls.

  11. Until, when daylight ebbed and was folded away,

    within the night shone the saffron-dyed sun of its day.

  12. I grappled with it; it lingered on, then broke apart—

    its breaths, at its dawn, gasping for air.

  13. The white camels turned their heads, as though

    stealthily bearing Muhammad’s secret beneath the saddlecloths.

  14. They emerged from a night whose stars seemed

    the swords of a dim, dust-clouded day.

  15. Then our spears rose, laden with deaths,

    and the horses were in a thick-woven, enshrouding night.

  16. Flashes from the scabbards appeared now,

    red, then vanished again within men’s heads.

  17. A war whose own sons were its fuel,

    conceived despite barrenness, before it had even drawn breath:

  18. among them one fugitive mounted escape, and another was struck dead,

    his doom crouching upon him while he still breathed.

  19. The spearpoints wrested his soul from him,

    and he lay as prey to licking or gnawing.

  20. If you must descend upon the heights, then spare

    the home of al-Rabab, and every Khazrajite or Awsī;

  21. and spare the sheltered women—for their swords

    are newly forged, though their spear-shafts bear no battle-scars.

  22. The Banū al-Najjār raised my standing among them;

    then, when I declared my lineage, they made room in the assembly.

  23. Is mountain-dwelling Ṭayyiʾ grateful to a man

    who warded satirical verses from her lofty sanctuary?

  24. The staunchest protector, father of a band—the bones within his grave

    have crumbled, yet the remnant of their glory has not.

  25. I repaid his favor through the excellence of her service,

    then stood alone in a distinction never sullied.

  26. Whenever I boast, I recount the striving of a glorious exploit

    that forced the fierce man’s gaze to lower.

  27. So bridle your tongue from reviling our honor,

    lest a lion in its lair seize you from your familiar haunt.

  28. You wore out the pride inherited from your father, then came to us

    with a new father after a long search.

  29. The decisive verses found their way against him,

    so off he went disputing with a mute man in a grave.

Sol 5.6