Sol 6

  1. Is your gaze enamored of the lightning from Najd?

    It trots across the horizons, now gently, now at full speed.

  2. When the people resolved to depart,

    and I had no hope that they would stay,

  3. my life poured from my eyelids in longing,

    and the fool thought it was only tears.

  4. Would that the riding beasts, when they bore our love away,

    had been driven at evening, weary and limping.

  5. Though they gave no warning of their departure,

    and its dreadful sight took us by surprise,

  6. a crow had cried to me of their parting beforehand,

    a piebald crow upon an arak branch.

  7. Peace upon the king of kings, whom

    a loyal friend leads, murmuring greetings for him to hear.

  8. He stands by the abode of loyalty, though often

    men have forgotten loyalty and let it go to waste.

  9. You have surpassed kings; every one of them

    aims at your virtues or follows your path.

  10. You have no resting place except in the sky,

    and no bed but where the sun lies down.

  11. Though some people can neither harm nor help,

    you among us can indeed harm and help.

  12. You come from a people whose faces seem

    stars rising in the night of battles.

  13. Their feet race toward high honors,

    and their arms reach out in times of crisis.

  14. Their colors never pale in a feared ordeal,

    though the day itself is mottled with many colors.

  15. Their lips are barren of every foul word,

    and their home is empty of every disgraceful deed.

  16. Their hands flow when the rain has ceased,

    showering gifts upon those who seek their aid.

  17. They hasten bravely to the call for help,

    and bright blades gleam in every hand.

  18. When they thrust on the day of battle, they strike widely;

    when they feed the hungry in famine, they fill them.

  19. Weighed for composure, they are mountains,

    yet how many of them rush headlong toward death!

  20. Among them is only a lofty, resolute man,

    raised as high as the Pleiades, or a youth attended by others.

  21. How many days have you witnessed battle,

    wearing no armor but blows and thrusts?

  22. In your hand the sharp Yemeni sword cuts,

    though not every sword held in a hand can cut.

  23. You ride with loose reins, as if your mount

    were one of the lean, hungry steeds that never drink or eat their fill.

  24. You see only spearheads dripping blood,

    and white blades drinking from the hollows of chests.

  25. They knew, when injustice spread among them

    and a shaking wind of treachery swept them away,

  26. that all one saw was the scattered pieces of a necklace

    and their pledges breaking apart.

  27. Everything familiar about them had changed;

    even the man who broke his pledge was their most faithful,

  28. for you had trained forbearance until you wore it

    next to your skin, never to be taken off.

  29. The one who yesterday had been unruly returned

    obedient to you, though an old horse marked by scars.

  30. Had you wished, when you grew suspicious of them

    and they sought what could not be approved, persisting in it,

  31. you could have sent them flying beneath hoofs into the dust,

    as a battered waterskin flies across the desert.

  32. After that, no hearer among them would have been found,

    nor any voice among them left to be heard.

  33. I am content with a line in your hand as a treasure to keep,

    though little that satisfies others satisfies me.

  34. I have no refuge except beneath your shade,

    and no pasture except in your gardens.

  35. May I have no place to stay except with you,

    and no spring dwelling except in your abode.

  36. May God never ordain that we be parted from you,

    nor let distance or division arise between us.

  37. If I bade you farewell on a day of parting,

    I would almost be bidding farewell to life itself.

  38. If you are mine, held within my grasp,

    I seek nothing beyond you.

  39. If you support me against my enemies,

    I care little whether they disperse or gather.

  40. My love for you never subsides, I pledge;

    I have always loved what is honorable.

  41. Some rebuke me because I obey you,

    though nothing but greater obedience would satisfy you.

  42. None reproaches me for advising you but an ill-wisher,

    or one who delights in secret deceit.

  43. Were they fair, they would not blame my love,

    for my heart neither turns aside nor lets go.

  44. They tried to shake one who will not bend,

    and threatened one who will not fear.

  45. How many a shot has failed to strike its mark,

    and how many a speaker's words go unheard!

  46. It is a risk to provoke an eloquent man

    whose words can cleave through lands and cut deep.

  47. It does me no harm to be charged with falsehood;

    all my life I have spoken the truth aloud.

  48. What they threatened me with did not frighten me;

    may the frightened man never be rescued from its gloom.

  49. If a rough place rejects me and I find it hateful,

    God grants me somewhere broader beyond it.

  50. Here, take these verses, whose meanings I have veiled;

    you, above all others, can best discern them.

  51. My allusion was no secret of mine,

    but I ward off harm as best I can.

  52. When I speak of you, I make myself clear,

    though many a stammering tongue fails at speech.

  53. How many poems have I composed in your praise,

    with places to rise across the horizons of the earth!

  54. They are mountains; other poems are mere dust,

    strong nab‘ wood beside castorwood sayings.

  55. May this feast bring you joy; may you live to see its like,

    while the nose of whoever wishes you ill is cut off.

  56. May you go and come through time empowered

    over people, giving to whom you wish and withholding.

  57. May your branch never wither through all the ages,

    and your pillar never wear away or shake.

Sol 6