أى لبيب بك لم يخدع — Sardar

What wise person has not been deceived by you?

And what eye has not shed tears over you?

I do not praise despair, but it

Gives the soul more rest than hopeful longing.

Happy is he who saw the grass of hopes

Being grazed, yet neither grazed nor fed there.

Would that, before love deafened me,

I had let reproach reach my ear.

Will any of the life gone by return?

Yet its promised return is utterly false.

And where are the full moons of Banu Darim,

Too miserly to unveil from their rising-place?

Neither at the month's dark end do they appear to us,

Nor through the ten nights and four.

Had their eyes not been arrows,

They would not have pierced the side of the veil.

How did they pass through to my vital spot,

Without my shield or armor knowing?

I entrusted them with my heart, never thinking

They would approve betraying its depositor.

It came into their hands, and I took them to judgment:

The right is mine, and I am the claimant.

Were their phantom to visit me, it would not know,

So wasted am I, that I lay in my bed.

I say to the riders who have resolved

On pilgrimage to the ruins and former dwellings:

Raise the pilgrim's call in my name at ʿAqiq of the protected pasture,

And at that summer retreat and spring abode.

And tell whatever you wish about me:

It falls short of my painful, burning grief.

May a steady rain pour upon their pasture,

Tenderly caressing its suckling infants.

A splendid rain—if hair could grow through it,

It would make hair grow on a bald man's forehead.

Every cloud that rains upon their land

Carries its water from my tears.

And every wind that stirs their dust

Is the sigh rising from my ribs.

Will fifty years intercede for me with them?

Far from it—twenty did not intercede.

If my eyes rain down clouds, it is from

Lightning flashes gleaming at my hair's parting.

You want long life and youth together—

Things never combined for a human being.

To beautiful women, it is all the same whether

A young man's head wears gray hair or his death is announced.

Time's head is dyed by its night

And its dawn in black and dusky hues.

Calamities many times the number of pebbles

Bring together the desert lizard and the frog.

They destroy the pale gazelle in her wilderness

And take the maiden unawares in her chamber.

How many a stone-laden storm of its reversals has passed over me—

Had it passed over the gray dove, she would not have cooed.

I raised my shoulder above its waves,

Where the dark cloud points with a finger.

Whoever does not plunge into its depths cannot build

The foundations of glory, nor raise them.

Before high honors lies a towering ascent:

So fly to its summit—or fall.

Tell the outcasts: I see that your creed

Is my creed, and that of the crooked-pawed lion:

Either its claw feeds its fang,

Or it dies hungry without felling prey.

When shall I see you like wolves of the ghada thickets

That have scented the grazing goats?

Among youths whose dozing is mostly

The resting of heads upon forearms.

If they halt for the night, they do not hobble their camels

Except with locks of hair together with the straps.

Like stars of the night, they guide

Whoever strays in the vast, barren desert.

The fresh blood of throats dyes their hands

When other folk dye theirs with red pigment.

I said, while, drunk with sleep, they

Swayed like worshippers prostrating and bowing:

Urge on your mounts: how many a goal

Has been reached upon limping she-camels!

And call upon Abu Saʿd: he will aid you,

Like the point of a leveled brown spear.

A long reach, an open hand,

And speech that strides proudly through the assembly.

When his pens ascend into his palm,

They mock the eloquent orator.

His pools are filled with bounty:

Whenever a thirsty wanderer comes, his thirst is quenched.

An inspection of his teeth reveals a mature steed

That has won the race and never been deceived.

A person's beauty does not lie in his cloak:

His beauty lies in the loftiest honor.

People point toward him with gestures

If asked, 'Who is known as the splendid one?'

What his robes enfold shows you

The beauties of the world in one place.

Whoever has no learning is undervalued,

Like dinars before they have been struck.

O my brother—affection's bonds of kinship,

Though kinship's bonds be severed, remain unbroken.

The shared learning that binds us

Is closer than a nursing mother.

I have a need which, if you fulfill it,

Is a favor bestowed where a favor belongs.

And a scout like you entrusts

His household to the safest keeping.

Hear me, you two: speak for me to him whose praise

Is the creak of a hastening rider's saddle;

From whom hopes return, having filled

Their waterskins from his overflowing pool.

The lightning of his kindness is no rainless flash,

Nor do the desert's clouds disperse.

If you compare someone else to him,

You make nabʿ wood and castor wood equal.

Why have you given my enemies control of

The reins upon the head of the long-necked, swimming steed?

They pelt my love with the pebbles of their lies,

Like pelting the pilgrimage's jamarat with pale pebbles.

Every mouth spits out a saying against me—

A scorpion's sting is safer than it.

They turned against me when I offered sincere counsel; had I

Practiced deceit, they would have stood with me.

And reconsider your judgment, that it may be restored

By the one who returned the sun to Joshua.

For you are better guided on the road to high honor

Than sandgrouse on the broad, well-trodden path.

And take possession of it—had it reached Thaʿlab,

It would have made him forget what is related from al-Asmaʿi.

Yesterday we saw someone who spoke and listened;

And today we lack anyone who understands.