1. Fasten my saddle upon the back of youth;

    indeed, youth is the mount of folly.

  2. If my soul is preserved until a later time,

    I shall govern it in gray old age with reason.

  3. Indeed, the exile in his own homeland

    is one who lives in this world without a close friend.

  4. And when the heart dwells without desire,

    it is like a dwelling without inhabitants.

  5. Who but me will hunt the gazelles

    if the wine of reproach intoxicates me?

  6. I plunged deeply into love, disdaining

    that the heart should remain unoccupied.

  7. I feared forgetting love, so I charged them

    to deny me the pleasure of union.

  8. My tears exceeded the extent of my grief,

    so I wept for those love had slain before me.

  9. No sorrowful man concealing his grief passed by

    without my saying, 'Love-stricken, like me.'

  10. He hides—yet they do not escape my gaze—

    submission's banner and abasement's brand.

  11. O slayer, emboldened by having

    victims without retaliation or blood money!

  12. Why not spill blood, when its owner

    grants you the fullest leave to do so?

  13. Away with the gazelles of curtained chambers! Indeed,

    their eye-sockets have been kohled with deceit.

  14. They shoot in the night of youth so that

    the places where the arrows strike stay hidden from me.

  15. Had their creator not wished me harm,

    he would not have joined beauty with stinginess.

  16. So cast your enemy, if you wish him

    a dire calamity, among wide eyes.

  17. They attain the full measure of violence through gentleness,

    and reach the utmost earnestness through play.

  18. Grant that they evaded their promise to me; their phantom—

    who could embolden it to put me off?

  19. I nearly punished it to exhaustion,

    but for remembering the inviolability of messengers.

  20. And your pledges at al-Raml have been broken;

    and so it is with whoever builds upon sand.

  21. If they resolved to sever ties, why did they bind

    my cord to theirs on the day at the dune?

  22. Nothing binds the captives among them

    but the well-rope of coal-black, wavy hair.

  23. How can I escape, when from their figures,

    their cheeks, and their breasts come my fetters?

  24. And when love binds souls, what

    does untying a hand or foot avail you?

  25. My companions, who urged their mounts onward

    until they made them kneel at Dhu al-Athl:

  26. who will climb a height and find out for me

    whether the herdsmen have brought the camels in at evening,

  27. or the tent poles have rattled, or

    their pavilions have been lifted onto full-grown camels,

  28. or the camel-driver has warbled a rhymed verse

    from which the raven of parting takes dictation?

  29. I dread their departure

    as a mother dreads the loss of her child.

  30. If that is so, may they encounter a broad road

    where the guide is blind to the paths!

  31. Gently! I cannot bear to carry what

    the most illustrious has borne for us in heavy burdens.

  32. He is the one to whom everyone concedes

    superiority over himself on the day of boasting.

  33. His noble deeds have raised the bride-prices for

    marrying the virgin of speech to action.

  34. And he gave to petitioners while they were in their homes,

    until they called him the gatherer of the scattered.

  35. He gives to you in hardship and in ease,

    and bestows from abundance and from little,

  36. like a cloud that never fails you through the

    changing circumstances, with downpour or drizzle.

  37. So it is as though he inspired his hand

    to kill destitution through giving.

  38. Trees of kindness he has caused to grow

    sway proudly in fruit and shade.

  39. And watering-places: if their visitor is content

    with a first draught, he compels him to a second,

  40. believing that duty earns no

    praise, and that gratitude is for giving beyond duty.

  41. His enemy too receives what his friend has from him;

    and rain sustains rugged ground and level land alike.

  42. And when the sky becomes as though on

    its doors lay a lock of drought,

  43. they find the clouds to be young she-camels wearied

    by travel, from exhaustion and emaciation,

  44. and the generous, through hunger, think it good

    to send gifts from the ants' hoards,

  45. in a gray-haired, spinster winter

    when milk is hard for the infant to obtain,

  46. his fingertips come early with a morning shower

    that clothes the land in mantles of herbage,

  47. and the rain-stars seem like a barren she-camel,

    gaunt, kicking the one who draws the milk.

  48. He has reached the goal, while his followers

    stumble as their sandals slip.

  49. Were the brave girded with his resolve,

    they would have no need of the polished Indian sword.

  50. His ribs have been curved around ambitions

    created for binding and unbinding.

  51. No one claims his boldness;

    and if one does, it is the lion cub's father.

  52. Adversaries do not take fright at weanlings

    that assail them with seething throat-pouches.

  53. Always, the man struck down by his speech flees

    from him to the Khattian spear and the blade.

  54. Time gazes at his adversary,

    in wrath against him, with inward-squinting eyes.

  55. In his palm is a hard, slender pen

    that stole its traits from the asp.

  56. Black serpents' venom is in its teeth,

    though it feeds on the bees' spittle.

  57. It is never made arbiter in a difficult matter

    without delivering a decisive judgment.

  58. Who is his equal in confronting a calamity

    that parts a wife from her husband?

  59. How unlikely that you should find his like!

    The mother of falcons bears few young.

Sol 6.1