1. This is al-Aqiq; those are the landmarks of the preserve.

    How long, then, will you press on, when the darkness has already dozed?

  2. Restrain your mounts and your tears; it is a disgrace,

    not a custom, to pour blood upon the idols.

  3. Who will bring me one of balanced stature, whom you would deem

    the branch's twin in the suppleness of his curves?

  4. His eyes are his two helpers; my sickness comes from them.

    His lips—how often they have healed! My cure lies in them.

  5. He replaced the morning light, after the darkness and its stars,

    with a face, a temple-lock like night, and a smiling mouth.

  6. Indeed, the tracery of his cheek-down betrayed passion;

    it hid love while bare, and betrayed it when finely patterned.

  7. O you who slay your lovers with an eye,

    you are safe from retaliation, though you have shed blood.

  8. If a wish for a day of union with you came true for me,

    I would not lack patience for your estrangement.

  9. Do not give me the wine of your mouth to drink, for it

    kindles longing, or keeps thirst alive.

  10. Likewise, do not smile: your mouth is a lightning flash,

    and tears are rain: whenever it flashes, they pour.

  11. He arrived, having routed the darkness with a smiling mouth

    that dazzled the eyes, so I could not see his mouth.

  12. Then you shone forth like the world in slumber's palm,

    while darkness burnishes the full moon into a dirham.

  13. Lightning flashes, and the clouds are like a traveler

    whom long weariness has overcome, so he pitches camp.

  14. Like Sa'd al-Din's qualities toward those who seek him

    and the delegations: he gave, as was his custom, and smiled.

  15. He gives when the clouds withhold their water,

    and shines when the face of aspirations grows dark.

  16. He ranges where the spears are interlocked,

    and advances when the champions hang back.

  17. How many a captive he has freed from enemies' shackles,

    rescued the distressed, and enriched the destitute!

  18. He wheeled a gray horse through the battle's press,

    and brought it back dust-darkened, jet-black.

  19. When he rides out at dawn, you encounter darkness and its star:

    dust risen like the sky, and a keen spear.

  20. Bright swords write, and faces are parchment sheets;

    their ink is lifeblood, their script dotted.

  21. Where he encounters, in every mountain of a man like himself,

    an unassailable mountain of doubled chainmail,

  22. and dark-skinned men as drink for slender, dusky spears,

    and fair-skinned men as food for bright, cutting swords.

  23. A champion: when the furnace of battle blazes, you would think him

    a lion charging the champions with a speckled serpent.

  24. You would think his augmented mane and the spears

    a thicket, and the cleaving sword his claw.

  25. From his wrath and his favor he spreads in battle

    misery and blessings, though the envious man wastes with grief.

  26. When battle is feared, he proclaims his name and his byname,

    hurls ranks upon ranks, and displays his battle-mark.

  27. He makes his sharp sword the judge over armored men;

    and whoever prevails in combat's judgment rules at will.

  28. He purified bounty for me, though it had been black mire,

    and granted me goodness, though it had been a guarded preserve.

  29. He settled me where al-Simak, with its lance,

    lies below me; now I am more impregnable than both.

  30. His generosity gave me another draught of the water of life,

    until I trusted in his shade, even should I grow old.

  31. Through him I became victorious, so that even the points of

    my pen bent back misfortune's claw and clipped it.

  32. He became Jamil, and glory Buthayna;

    each spends the night enthralled by the other.

  33. May the feast gladden him, bringing him his equal,

    as a companion who sought generosity's sea and made for it.

  34. He and his companion, its month and its close—

    each has become revered throughout the worlds.

  35. Now the company has come together,

    and the necklace is strung in order on Time's neck.

  36. A sun and a full moon in a single abode:

    before long, the two will beget stars.

  37. The famed one has passed beyond where darkness falters,

    and generosity has traversed the lands, to Najd and Tihama.

  38. People are Time's sons, and it is his habit

    to spurn his sons with estrangement and brutality.

  39. Time did ill, but he was kind and beneficent;

    when it withheld, he was openhanded and generous.

  40. So if it is generous, or gives after holding back,

    I suppose it learned from his two palms.

  41. You raised religion's pillar, O son of its champion;

    without your father and you, it would have been demolished.

  42. You adorned it and fortified it against the enemies,

    when you donned armor and your sword became inviolable.

  43. Before you, he had been master of lofty deeds;

    he laid the foundation, and you came to complete it.

  44. You both established the best of bounty, so that

    the saddlebags spoke with the delegations of what came from you both.

  45. Had death granted him respite—may you be spared it—

    none but a Muslim would have remained across the horizons.

  46. Your day meets you with congratulations, following yesterday,

    and tomorrow, could it offer greetings, would surely greet you.

Sol 6.1