الحب ما منع الكلام الألسنا — Al Mutanabbi

Love is what keeps tongues from speech;

and a lover's sweetest complaint is what he proclaims.

Would that the beloved, who forsakes me as sleep does,

though I have done no wrong, would cling to me as wasting sickness does.

We parted; were you to describe us, you would not know what

our colors were, so many shades of pallor had they taken.

And our breaths blazed until indeed

I feared the reproaching women would burn between us.

I would ransom the woman bidding farewell, whom I followed

with glances one by one, amid sighs two by two.

Once I found the oncoming calamities strange;

then I grew familiar with them, and they became my wont.

I crossed the deserts of the world; my mounts

there—and my two times of travel—were forenoon and deep night.

And I halted in it where bounty made me halt,

and from Badr ibn Ammar attained my wishes.

Abu al-Husayn has bounty whose vessel is too narrow

to hold it, even if that vessel were all the ages.

And courage whose renown spares him its use,

and whose tale forbids the coward to be cowardly.

His sword-straps were hung upon a seasoned warrior's shoulder,

who never returned to the charge—how could he, never having retreated?

So, with spear-thrusts before him, he is as though

afraid of being stabbed from behind.

The keenness of his mind has banished conjecture from him,

so he judges unseen matters with certainty.

The tyrant is terrified of his sudden attacks,

so he stays wrapped in a shroud in his private retreats.

He carries out his will: for him, 'will' is 'already';

and he deems the farthest near: for him, 'there' is 'here'.

He finds iron upon his tender skin

a garment lighter than silk, and softer.

And bitterer to him than losing loved ones

is losing swords bereft of scabbards.

Fear never lodges between his ribs

even for a day; nor does bounty fear that he will fail to give.

He deduces from his knowledge what tomorrow holds,

as though what will happen then were written down.

Minds fall short of comprehending him,

as they fail to grasp that which contains the spheres and worlds.

Whoever is not among his slain is among those he has freed;

whoever is not among those who submit is among those doomed to death.

When you returned to us from the coasts,

loneliness returned to them from our midst.

The road grew fragrant; you passed no place

where fragrance did not settle to make its home.

Had the trees you met possessed reason,

they would have stretched their branches toward you in greeting.

The jinn entered the statues on the domes out of

longing within them, and they turned their eyes toward you.

Our mounts rejoiced, and we imagined that,

had modesty not restrained them, they would have danced with us.

You approached smiling while the steeds scowled,

trotting with doubled rings of mail and lances.

Their hooves knotted a cloud of dust above them;

had they wished to trot upon it, they could.

And command was yours, and hearts were fluttering

in a place between death and hope.

I marveled until I could marvel no more at the sword-edges,

and looked until the radiance left me unable to see.

Indeed, I see you as an army of noble virtues

within an army, and a mine of exalted deeds.

Your heart discerned what I did while far away,

and what I left undone, for fear you would discern it.

Separation from you became my punishment for it;

what I suffered from it was no light matter.

So forgive me—may I be your ransom—and favor me afterward,

singling me out with a gift of which I myself am part.

And restrain whoever gives you misguided counsel about me;

for the noble man is tried by sons of fornication.

And when a man casts forth words by way of allusion

in an assembly, those words seize the sharp-tongued man.

And the schemes of fools fall back upon them;

and poets' enmity is a wretched thing to acquire.

Cursed be the company of the base man, for it is

a guest that drags along an uninvited guest of remorse.

The envious man's anger, when I find you pleased,

is a misfortune too slight for me even to weigh.

He who had become an unbeliever in your Lord,

though not one of us, now believes with us in your bounty.

The lands were left without the sun by night;

so God gave you to them instead, that they might not grieve.