دست سعاد رسولا غير متهم — Rabia Al Ruqi

Su'ad secretly sent a messenger above suspicion,

A maidservant, who came as one keeping hidden.

The messenger came with a sheet of paper bearing its seal,

And in the letter was enchantment inscribed with the pen.

In it lay love's enchantments, which she kept concealing

From the ignorant, though they are not hidden from the perceptive.

I had understood what she concealed, so I said to her:

Speak openly with 'no' and 'yes,' in plain words.

She said: Come, if you wish, in concealment.

The decision is yours, O Raqqi; set your terms.

Come forward, Rabi'a, into ample room and ease,

On a night without moonlight; seize the darkness.

So I visited her, my gaze lowered to my foot,

And I had clothed myself in two cloaks of darkness.

Then happened what happened; no one knew of it.

I did no wrong, nor was I put off with prohibitions.

Su'da visited you, though Su'da is far away from you;

She kept you awake, though she did not visit from nearby.

Welcome to your phantom, O Su'da, as it calls on us—

A phantom that journeys without a star or a landmark.

You are my bedfellow when I sleep, in my dream,

And you are the star when the eye does not sleep.

How false are the eye and dreams, every one!

Is my dream ever truthful about union with her?

Say 'yes'; if you say it, it is beneficial.

It is not 'perhaps'; 'perhaps' is patience until 'yes.'

You bestowed a favor upon us; I do not deny it,

Until I am hidden in the grave's burial niche.

My heart is sick, and love's disease has sickened it.

If you wished, you could cure the heart of sickness.

She said: Your heart is divided among fair women;

What need have I of a divided heart from you?

You are the fickle one who took another in my place;

You slighted me and bought meanness at the cost of nobility.

I had sworn that I was [free] of love for you, yet I did not

Keep my oath, though I had sworn it solemnly.

I seek God's forgiveness; the heart has softened, and there is no

Kinship between me and you, O Raqqi.

If only whoever blamed us for love had tried it!

If he tasted what I have tasted, he would not blame.

Love is an intractable sickness with no cure,

Except the breath of a sweet-breathed beloved,

Or a kiss obtained from a mouth in stealth.

And a mouth I press against a mouth is not forbidden.

This is forbidden to whoever counts it a minor lapse,

And the Merciful will not punish us for minor lapses.

The heart went mad for Su'da in its waywardness;

If only my heart had not gone mad for you, O Su'd!

You are she whose love bequeathed to my heart

A deep-seated sickness and yearning without end.

You were created from musk, while other people were made

From sticky clay, from a clod of dusky, dried clay.

God has fashioned no human in your likeness

Since Yusuf, among Arabs or non-Arabs.

Your upper body is formed from a straight, dusky spear-shaft,

And your wrap lies over a heaped-up mound of you.

And you are a garden of fragrant herbs, exhaling perfume,

Or a meadow sprinkled by downpours and steady rains,

Or an egg in a sand dune, or a pearl that emerged

From a surging sea of foaming, crashing waves.

At the touching of the Corner, I met a beautiful woman,

Radiant, with shining cheeks, like an idol.

Her buttocks quiver; her flanks are slender.

She walks gently, like a drunken drinker's gait.

Her singing-maids say, as her buttocks weigh her down,

From behind her: You have reached the Corner; touch it.

So she submitted, then stood awhile and prayed.

I stood praying too; but for her, I would not have stood.

At last, when she departed, I greeted her, and she turned.

So I said: You are among my cares and sorrows.

She said: And who are you? Her attendants said to her:

This is Rabi'a; this is the temptation of peoples.

This is the love-tormented one whose love verses used to

Reach you; veil yourself with a cloak and darkness.

The devil of his people has met you while you are in consecration;

So take refuge in God from the devil.

She said: I seek refuge in my Lord from you—and veiled herself

With a [hand], its fingertips supple as 'anam shoots.

I said: The pledge and God's covenant—you have betrayed them!

No covenant holds with the treacherous betrayer of pledges.

Did you not say 'yes'? She said: Yes, mistakenly,

On my part; is a person held accountable for a mistake?

We repented, fasted, and prayed to our Creator,

But you did not repent of any sin, nor did you fast.

So I blamed myself for lavishing my affection on her,

And for her stinginess; I gnashed my teeth in regret.

So may God banish a person and cast him far away,

Who sustained love for someone who did not sustain it.