1. She came with the darkness, her greeting borne along;

    but her fragrance and her smile betrayed her.

  2. Her veil is wound around the wing of darkness,

    and her face-veil is lifted from the light of dawn.

  3. An oryx—her front teeth like my verse, her words

    like my tears: pearls whose string has slipped away.

  4. She has sweet saliva; but for piety, I would not forbid it,

    and but for love, its wine would not be lawful to me.

  5. Her saliva and her glances are choice wine and magic;

    her face and her words, a sun and pearls.

  6. I disobeyed a woman who blamed me for her, and a reprover,

    though her rebuke and reproach had once been heeded.

  7. Who will help eyelids whose ailing ones never recover,

    and a yearning lover's soul whose thirst is never quenched?

  8. All within it persists in love, save fortitude;

    all falls short, save its longing and passion.

  9. By God, a heart—even its lodger has wronged

    me; and an eye—even its sleep is estrangement.

  10. I am afflicted by one whose glances kill my patience,

    and whose people and stature are my heart's ruin.

  11. Slender of form, her eyelids drowsy,

    her magic is in my heart, her sickness in my body.

  12. Thoughts conjure her, though she is far away;

    her fleeting visits have indeed deceived—save within hearts [wording unclear].

  13. My two friends, has her dwelling departed from al-Jazʿ?

    And have her tents been pitched at al-Abraqayn?

  14. My body and my patience are both wasted after her departure,

    and her pledge and covenant are both worn out in my absence.

  15. She is the sun; after her, my morning is a night's dark wing,

    whose stay my longing insists must be prolonged.

  16. Leave me, you two: complaining to people brings abasement.

    I shall endure, whether it is lifted or persists.

  17. For this is not the first perplexity of time

    whose darkness has lifted from me through Majd al-Din.

  18. He slays calamities whose persistence has defeated

    all others, and revives the soul whose death has been decreed.

  19. Fear of him spread through the earth, with safety following behind,

    so its grazing herds feared nothing but his blades.

  20. The morning showers of his generosity adorned every bare place,

    until its lowlands and hills became equal.

  21. His is the rising of glory after its setting,

    and its withers and hump, his alone among mankind.

  22. His fingers bestowed on me things like meadows,

    and meadows are nothing but what their clouds weave.

  23. So I reached the abode of glory, its slopes dark green,

    yes, and the pools of generosity, their full waters blue.

  24. The abode of wealth is not far from me,

    nor is the goal of glory hard to attain.

  25. The caliphate has taken him as a shield,

    so its rear and front have become impregnable.

  26. Through him its pillars were made firm after weakening,

    and it stood; without him, standing would have been hard.

  27. He is none other than its watching eye and its sleep,

    none other than its forearm and its keen sword.

  28. If another before him was conventionally called a minister [reading uncertain],

    then rainless clouds have been counted among heaven's clouds.

  29. There is no doubt that swords are many,

    but their sharp and blunt kinds are not equal.

  30. He supports an imam whose rule has spread over the earth,

    and masters a world whose reins are in his hands.

  31. Its brave men and cowards are no secret,

    nor are its sturdy bow-wood and frail grass alike.

  32. To his enemies, his clouds are thunder;

    to those seeking his bounty, downpours and streaming rain.

  33. Through him the worth of the age and its people has risen;

    the rain-bringing stars would mean nothing without their gentle showers.

  34. If the bright stars could find a way to rise

    to him, their throng would humble the petitioners.

  35. When his swords bow among his foes,

    their heads fall prostrate in the battle.

  36. He has a family, tawny-lanced and slender,

    yet white-handed and mighty.

  37. Seas of bounty, abundant and ample in gifts;

    suns of morning, bright-faced and handsome.

  38. Their promises are hoped for, their threats feared;

    their pardon gives life, their vengeance brings death.

  39. Suns of noble deeds whom no eclipse has touched;

    full moons whose fullness has never left them.

  40. Mighty spear-thrusters when champions take fright and flee;

    lavish feeders when the year yields nothing and grows barren.

  41. Its lamps and moons are its scholars;

    its fierce warriors are its horsemen and its noble men.

  42. Every one of them is generous in drought,

    and every one of them a hero in war.

  43. It shows you vipers and their shed skins in battle,

    when it dons armor one day: its spears and its coats of mail.

  44. If the lightning of its swords flashes,

    its arrows are the pouring torrent.

  45. The dawn of that land is nothing but their faces,

    and the night of that air nothing but their battle-dust.

  46. Great ones, whose souls were noble in life,

    and whose bones became great within the earth.

  47. When they give, they are rain whose waters pour;

    when they grow angry, they are fire whose flames blaze.

  48. When Hibat Allah's right hand pours forth,

    the thick, steady rain-cloud is only its cloud-bank.

  49. When he occupies the head of the council, he is its peerless one;

    when he takes the heart of the army, he is its mighty host.

  50. By his favors Jilliq has become a paradise for me,

    and Baghdad would not surpass it but for its imam.

  51. Through him it has become a beauty-mark on the earth's cheek,

    and Egypt and Syria fall short of it.

  52. His are God's sacred Kaaba and its Corner,

    its sacred site within its enclosure, and its Station.

  53. He is the firmest handhold: every calamity

    of time would be feared, were it not for its breaking [wording unclear].

  54. And he is the lamp of God's religion among His servants;

    without him, its lawful and forbidden matters would defy understanding.

  55. I shall clothe them both in praise's brocade, adorned

    with necklaces of rhymes, ordered like necklaces.

  56. They are unbound, yet bound by their generosity;

    if released, their kisses would wear the earth away.

  57. The gardens of their meanings are entrusted to their words:

    gardens of blossoms that I have lodged within their calyxes.

  58. Their curtains are lifted only in their presence,

    and their seal is broken only within their shelter.

Sol 6.1