ما كنت بالباكي جآذر لعلع — Abn Alsaati

I would not have been the one weeping for Laʿlaʿ's young gazelles,

had your heart been with me on the day at Kazimah.

But you escaped love and left me

with a tearful eye and an aching heart.

My breast concealed love and its people from you,

so you read love's title in my tears.

And you judged fairly when you did not know the depth of longing

for those departing, or of grief for the former dwellings.

So cease your blame: my body is that

wasted one, and my eye the one that has not slept.

Had there been a remedy for the malady of ardent love,

the eyelid's water would not have kindled the ribs' fire.

And when the east wind sends out the envoys of its breeze,

say: Peace upon al-Liwa, then al-Ajraʿ.

It carried greetings from al-ʿUdhayb and Hajir,

and breathed, so I understood what I had not heard.

It was as though the slender forms of its branches danced

in rapture at the sweetness of its fragrant speech.

My passion is for one whose beauty is veiled, whose

cheeks are free of the blemishes of rising full moons.

The curves of his figure softened at my complaint,

as a bough softens with the enamored breeze.

He assailed me with the two eyes of an oryx with her fawn,

and stretched up with the graceful neck of a long-necked gazelle.

His hips spread fragrance around us and in his presence:

ah, the defiant one's pride, and the yielding one's humility!

Many a night of a tryst, dark as his aversion,

in which the stars could find no place to rise,

I confronted with two radiant things: his brow

and the sparkling choice wine in the cup of his right hand.

And I loosened his robe's fastening from a bān sapling,

slender-waisted, whose likeness the branches imitate and claim.

The star flickered like the eye of one afraid,

watchful, or like the heart of one struck with terror.

I feared the informers that night; but for his mouth,

I would have wept at the laughter of the flashing lightning.

And I beguiled the winds away from his breath,

to conceal it; but musk insists on spreading its fragrance.

Even if someone sought its first appearance

at its fullness, he would find it in my bed.

Ah, for a union scattered like tears

over him, and a pledge lost like sleep!

And a band like a mirage, whose deception raises hopes,

from which you return with thirst still unquenched.

All alike: if you happen to turn to them

in a crisis, they begrudge you even a word of comfort.

Dark-browed, as though the moisture of their faces

at shame's approach were a solution of steeped poison.

Their rainless clouds are scanned in eager hope,

and clouds have always been a source of hope.

Come to me, drought-worn ones, for I

am neighbor to the clouds and the pouring rains,

where the rain-cloud's thread never fails

and Nasir al-Din's bounty never ceases.

He yearns for his visitor as that visitor plans to leave him,

with a lover's longing for companions resolved to depart.

And he whose banners are upheld—the eye of his ambition

is ever turned in aspiration toward the highest goals.

He governed the lands and conducted himself among their people

with justice, in the manner of a scrupulous governor.

He is feared and hoped in: he gives and he destroys,

between his two roles of signing and striking.

And Mashrafi swords, though all of one kind,

are the coward's fear and the brave man's safety from terror.

He sent out raiding parties and assaults, until

the desert's wolf and its sheep shared one pasture.

He pardoned and abstained; could he, despite his thirst,

he would shun even the lawful, refusing to drink at the watering-place.

Wakeful, he did good while calamities did ill,

and bestowed prosperity on me after it had eluded me.

And how many a favor he bestowed on me, well-

known for kindness, amid separation and reunion.

So I shall surely thank you while I live and there is granted me

this continued life, whether you hear or do not hear,

with charming verses, roaming both horizons in their

words, mocking the eloquent, commanding orator.

Like a torrent or like night, nothing lies beyond

their traveling caravan—not even the farthest place.

How many wearers their mantles have ennobled,

and how many ears their necklaces have adorned!

So one delighted in things strung and arranged,

and another strutted in patterned, embroidered finery.

If you wear the crown, yet we have not won

their peerless pearl, then the crown is unjeweled.

And you are indeed the house whose pillars rise high,

for the fearful and the starving with empty bellies.

With proudly raised noses, free of indecency,

holding yourselves above obscene speech;

red-bladed, blue-spearheaded, green in the borders

of your sanctuary, black in the dark battle-dust.

In battle, when they unveil their faces, their beauty says

through the dust: O sun of day, veil yourself!

Spears are not acquired for hands other than theirs,

nor are blades forged for fingers other than theirs.

And a dust-cloud like darkness, as though

the swords brought back the sun within it, like Yushaʿ.

Vultures wheeled in the sky above its armored warriors,

as thirsty ones circle a sweet drinking-place.

It pitched its pavilion over one fortified

from among you, made impregnable by spearpoints.

Fully armed with resolve, supported by reason

and prudence, with fluttering banners—a noble lord.

In him the foes encounter—when death opens

the paths of destruction with leveled spears—

one more unerring than fate shooting its arrows,

and fiercer and braver than a lion in its den.

Among the hard things—their skulls and his swords—are

cupbearers and music-makers there, as many as you wish.

And your father is Bahram among the stars, for

since he traveled glory's horizon, he has never been followed.

Possessed of unassailable glory, and ʿAd-like splendor, most

ancient, and the loftiest Tubbaʿ-like kingship.

But for him, the world's sanctuary would not be

feared, nor the lands' valley a haunt of lions.

He courted martyrdom with his life,

advancing along the broad path of death.

You both surpassed mankind in worth: the branch is the most auspicious

arrival, the root the best of those bid farewell.

He who perished is not dead when one like you is his son,

like rain replaced by a brimming pool.

You attained lordship young and radiant,

while every hastening elder stumbled behind you.

And you showed me the king of kings, and the pasture of

hopes, in his bounty's lush assembly.

I had indeed renounced praise, but you persisted

until I returned as though I had never renounced it.

The world submitted to you, and your wishes came to meet you;

prosperity kept faith with you: take it and enjoy.

Let anyone but you keep far from me, for I

am humbled by nothing but parting from you.