Sol 6.1

  1. I have lacked wealth since fortune became destitute,

    and a neck once adorned with a necklace was stripped bare.

  2. Gray hair is only a lightning flash by which I find my way,

    when it appears, shining in the night of youth.

  3. Forty years have not diverted me from the oryxes,

    when one from Najd raises its head and stretches its neck.

  4. I flirt with the gazelles of chastity with an eye

    visited by the phantom of sleeplessness, which kept it awake.

  5. When folly slyly shakes the flank of my forbearance,

    it withdraws from it a hand that found no hold.

  6. I am not blunt in the battle for my hopes,

    but a sword, grown more beautiful and brilliant [reading uncertain].

  7. I am the sword, with water and fire within it, that have long

    blazed and shimmered in the sheath of reason.

  8. How often I have waded alone into night's deep sea, taking [reading uncertain]

    the horizon's crescent for myself as a skiff for longing.

  9. .......

    My magic has never ceased to gather and separate.

    [Missing text]

  10. I shortened the stride of his veil [fragment].

    So I watched no flashing cloud, even if it poured abundantly.

  11. Likewise, I have never lacked a garden of excellence,

    whose boughs' fruit I gather, choosing the finest.

  12. O son of those who left no scion of nobility,

    in times past, a way to climb to glory's summit;

  13. and you whose father subdued the world by his might—

    it is no wonder that the water shone.

  14. The gentlest of people in forgiveness, the fiercest in temper,

    and nearest in generosity, yet farthest in ascent.

  15. O banner for visiting delegations, whose shade flutters:

    no one in need visits him and returns disappointed.

  16. You have longed for my words; every son of aspiration

    remains eager for their like.

  17. Noble maidens, never without a lover among men;

    beauty has always been beloved among people [reading uncertain].

  18. Why, then, do they seek accord, only to turn back

    with cheeks slapped when they visit al-Muwaffaq?

  19. And how can a suitor grant them a lavish dower,

    when they have found the door of welcome closed?

  20. Reason's restraint calls them back and returns them

    to their secluded chamber, virgins, wholly chaste.

  21. .......

    None but a king or a lord is ever their equal.

    [Missing text]

  22. Secluded wherever they dwell, while their renown,

    even when they go west, crosses the lands eastward.

  23. In times of peace you see them as a herd of wild-cow calves,

    and amid battle and spear-thrusts, an army.

  24. .......

    How long will you shake glory till its branches flutter?

    [Missing text]

  25. And you journey by night among hopes through every darkness—

    it shone, and it grew dark [fragment].

  26. He softened toward them until, once they tasted of it [reading uncertain],

    he departed from his own nature and grew fastidious.

  27. Is this so, though I intended no painful reproach

    that might make him harsh, nor committed a ruinous offense?

  28. Why did he not follow the vizier's example? For I

    through him secured a pledge from oath-breaking time.

  29. Whenever I came to him in hardship after hardship,

    he bestowed a lavish gift and signed without restriction [reading uncertain].

  30. How often I wove brocade when he sent a steady rain,

    and whitened a meaning when he blackened a page.

  31. Who can rob the radiant dawn of its light?

    And who can dam the sea against pouring forth?

  32. Thus his palm ripens the fragrance of musk,

    and it is the nature of blossoms to open.

  33. How many a generous man has failed to do justice to my praise,

    even though he was a nocked arrow in lofty deeds.

  34. Between you two there is a difference in every circumstance:

    when your bounty is married to a husband, he divorces it.

  35. If their hands give the decayed remnants of gifts,

    you are worthy of renewing and replacing them.

  36. I have from the days what makes my heart dance,

    and serves me at dawn a cup of clarified tears.

  37. The water of tears has indeed scorched me with grief;

    it is sorrow enough that water should become searing.

  38. Yet the robe of youth is patterned,

    and the serpents of my thought yield to no incantations.

  39. The eyes fall short of him,

    when a flash of cheer from his radiance gleams.

  40. And he brought me to my hopes; no door of humiliation

    did I knock on, nor cross a wall or moat.

  41. So my renown journeyed beyond land and sea,

    and my likeness circled in the sky and soared.

  42. If night's wild rush sought to veil his brow,

    he would split the gates of darkness and tear them apart.

  43. Why, then, has this age sought to hurt me?

    It renewed my fortune, then returned to wear it out.

  44. Its hangover overcame me after joy,

    though its wine had been cooled by the north wind and decanted.

  45. Perhaps you will lift me from stumbling, breathing

    a spirit of bounty into the body of misery,

  46. and raise hidden moons of grace.

    For you have shone for me from the horizon of your bounty [opening unclear].

  47. Indeed, their pastures have grown lean, short of satisfaction;

    and if you are not angered for them, may you live on [text uncertain].

  48. If shifting time sought something they desire,

    it would shrink as a slave or rise tall as a freedman.

Sol 6.1