هوى قمر العلياء يا ساري الجنح — Abn Alsaati

The moon of loftiness has fallen, O traveler through night's darkness.

How impossible that dawn's sign should erase the darkness!

As though the horizon's stars were bewildered [final word unclear],

And kept vigil in grief, clothed in the night's sackcloth.

And the torrents of generosity and bounty have subsided,

And their teats yield no milk when stroked.

The noble al-Kindi has gone his way,

So none remains to be hoped in for protection or largesse.

Time's youth has passed, and now it is bent,

Though once it was supple as the upper shaft of a spear.

At last the gatherer of al-Khalil's learning lies buried,

And its dispenser, without grudging or stinginess.

And the assayer of speech's pure gold and its flaws,

So none now distinguishes beauty from ugliness.

He was nothing but a sword, drawn for a while,

Its edge feared, its broad face admired.

Mankind's shortcomings showed beside his perfection,

And sweet, fresh water is not like stagnant brine.

The father of learning unveils, before the suitors of his guidance,

The faces of meanings, neither frowning nor grim.

He is the bountiful downpour; the sea within his breast

Surges in a flood, not a meager flow or seepage.

And his morning showers lightened the sky of al-Sham,

So it complained of no burden from its rain-heavy clouds.

A leader who spread learning through every faith,

And poured it forth as a cloud pours down its torrent.

Some thus saw in his face the advent of Eid,

While others deemed it the morning of Easter.

I forbade poetry's love-prelude after his death [reading uncertain],

And did not weep for the sands' gazelle-fawn or the slope's bān-tree.

The figures of fair women remained unadorned,

Even when they swayed amid necklaces and jeweled sashes.

Anguish would not let me forget the fervor of his earnestness,

Nor the charm of that humor and jesting.

What his hand wove, warp and weft, has not worn out,

And were you to seek its details, it would surpass explanation.

I am drunk with grief and cannot sober after him,

And the sky of noble deeds is clouded and will not clear.

I bind my heart with my fingers as one binds a broken limb,

But sorrow's throbs and agonizing, burning pain resist.

I beg the rain-stars for rain, though they are miserly,

So I turn insistently to my freely flowing tears.

And while he lived—no hope belied,

No blessing clouded, no flock neglected—

I passed every darkness with my fire brightly kindled,

And dawned, through his favors, the winner of the lot.

And from him—if only his life had lasted—I would return

To a treasure of knowledge consulted without toil.

Never was a cargo borne from me to him [reading uncertain]

Of merit, without commending the profit of the bargain.

How often a letter came to me from him, filled

With praise, like fragrant breaths wafting from a perfume-casket.

How often the sharp point of his tongue repelled from my honor

The abuse of an envier, scorching like fire.

He loosed me in a racecourse of his eloquence,

So, still a young horse, I passed the goal of full-grown racers.

Hard it is for the sons of Qays and its ‘Awf,

And Murrah, to exchange praise for elegies.

The fates' war upon all the tribes

Is ancient: why have they not returned to peace?

I rebuked them, but they did not desist; before that,

I counseled the nights, had they but listened to counsel.

They granted an eggshell or virtue's bark,

And swiftly departed with the kernel and the yolk.

In him they ravaged those lofty virtues; no charge was made

By a noble steed, nor defense by sword or spear.

May Nizar and Himyar never cast off humiliation,

Nor clothe themselves in shade from bān-trees and acacias.

May no sky make earth smile, nor may guidance be given

By morning's ray to riders toward a broad, clear road.

If that could have availed, mankind would not have been torn apart

And scattered in fragments that no counsel can stitch together.

The nights saw his soul a stranger among humankind,

Bearing much sorrow, far from casting it off [reading uncertain].

It remained alone, morning and day, without a companion,

So they feared it would linger, evening as lonely as morning.

We thus count this calamity a loss and a punishment,

And one who knows them: that it remain, evening as morning [text unclear].

There is no good in people whose faces' water

Is like a pool's spoiled water, muddied by stirring.

Their hands catch fever when a supplicant draws near,

Without the sweat of bodies, nor even a paltry gift.

In every gathering the hands of blame draw

Swords, forever striking at their honor.

Abu al-Yumn, my tears for you are not stilled,

Nor is my burning [liver] receiving its first wound.

Within it are old wounds inflicted by death,

Yet this is too great to be called a wound.

The kinship of loftiness between us was confirmed,

Though the tie between us was not a kinship of milk.

Whenever Yemen gathered around Qays, there shone

The lamps of cheerful openness and success.

So it returned with one whose shade of honor spread wide,

And came to an edifice of deep-rooted glory.

If my overwhelming grief for you were like other grief,

I would keep it folded in my side, like its fellows.

But it is the loss of life, the downfall of the

Life-giving rain, and the passing of all honor and success.

My lifetime is now night, whose morning cannot be hoped for,

Though in your shelter my morning knew no night.

I spoke of the favor you had hung about my neck,

So every gray dove resembled me in song.

How far apart are singing and weeping

For you, and wailing after you and gentle cooing!

O departed one, may God not make his abode far away,

I have drained my well of tears for him by drawing them out.

What seeps out bears witness to what the eye cannot see,

And every vessel's contents are known by what seeps out.

The mother of nights has indeed grown barren of his like,

And is fit neither for offspring nor for wheat [wording unclear].

When a son of night has no hope of meeting dawn,

How worthless a fire-stick that will not spark when struck!