Sol 6.1

  1. The caravan need not make amends for my ruin,

    and between those boughs and skulls.

  2. O my two friends, in the sanctuary my heart was lost

    among fair, statue-like beauties and black hearthstones.

  3. I am stricken by one whose sword and glance are keen against

    lovers, supple of spearshaft and bodily curves:

  4. a fawn whose eyelid is languid, yet sound;

    with a glance he sickens, and he heals.

  5. Beauty straightened his figure, just as

    a fine straightening tool straightens a spearshaft.

  6. His graces enthralled me in the moringa

    tree, and a hint of his saliva in pure wine.

  7. He visited while the full moon wore the robe of

    night—and full moons journey through darkness.

  8. Forgetting the way of concord; nothing

    made him forget it but his preoccupation with discord.

  9. O rulers of love, you gained power despite

    your weakness, and ruled with scant fairness.

  10. From you we desire nothing but

    joy on the day of meeting, and relief.

  11. Who will tend a cheek furrowed by tears,

    and a lovesick heart athirst for slender figures?

  12. Where hearts yield to longing amid

    the ruins, as waists yield to hips.

  13. Infatuated with that spring encampment, now

    desolate since its residents and summer dwellers departed;

  14. and nights that quenched a burning thirst and passed away—

    they leave in hearts the piercing stab of awls.

  15. Radiant as the countenance of King

    al-Afdal toward supplicants and guests.

  16. He apportions sustenance even as he sends death coursing

    through slender, straightened spears.

  17. Just—his judgment assails calamity;

    a guardian, whose care for humankind suffices.

  18. In peace and battle he is a giver

    of thousands through bounty, and a vanquisher of thousands.

  19. Bestowing his enemies' wealth on those who seek his bounty—

    what a giver of life, and what a destroyer!

  20. His palm and sword are a rainstorm over

    champions, striking with lightning that snatches them away.

  21. He is their destroyer and all they hope for, praised

    on both their day of blades and their day of platters.

  22. He who, when the heads of foes ripen,

    where brown spearshafts are shooting stars,

  23. fulfills his namesake's meaning; thus success's wing

    is ample in its primary and secondary flight feathers.

  24. And the Indian blade gathers from

    heads fruit that has declared itself ready for harvest.

  25. And amid the ponderous armies, the darkness of battle-dust is dispelled

    by the dawn of light swords within them.

  26. His edge is keen when glory brandishes him,

    and swords cleave by virtue of sharpening.

  27. Incisive in resolve, with swords for deputies,

    slaughtering high-humped she-camels in the lean years.

  28. Pure of disposition, character, and

    deeds, unblemished in branches and qualities.

  29. He stays in place, yet his bounty toward delegations

    moves with a vigorous trot and gallop.

  30. Through him Jilliq has become the Garden of

    Eternity, and its reaches have grown spacious.

  31. There you see only a wide-eyed spring of water

    in the face of an untouched meadow.

  32. What a bridegroom, before whom was unveiled the bride of

    cities, after her defiance, on the wedding day!

  33. Before that she had remained—calamity was calamity,

    and nights were relentless—

  34. her aversion and unjust reproach in my watcher,

    and her beauty and chastity in my cloak.

  35. What glad tidings for the horses, beyond

    all thanks, and what a blessing for those camel hoof-pads!

  36. They were adorned with the finest ornament ever worn,

    on a day of combat, by unadorned swords:

  37. a moon among the stars of his Khatti spear,

    brown-shafted, bestowed by the sky of the deserts.

  38. So he came as mercy, as approach the bright

    morning rainclouds, their udders brimming.

  39. A mountain of forbearance toward the wrongdoer; but if

    his bounty is watched for, a raincloud of kindness.

  40. Faith has become an eye, and he is its light;

    so guidance is like morning, never hidden.

  41. O son of him who grants the provinces a festival

    in the striped mantles of kingdoms,

  42. and of him before whom kings tremble, despite

    the distance, at his fluttering standard.

  43. He ruled the earth and harvested the reeds of brown

    spears, guarding its borders with their points.

  44. She found no one among humankind but you to be her

    husband, noble in grandsires and forebears.

  45. Through him she lies between a garden of

    security and a pure draught of generosity.

  46. He has indeed become the patron—how insignificant, then,

    is the following rain of copiously dripping clouds!

  47. His justice has made the earth flourish, and his favors

    flow in bucketfuls from one supplicant to another.

  48. And he endowed her even with one like you, cheerful of

    countenance; thus largesse and gifts embraced all.

  49. Cool of watering-place, quick-sparking of fire-stick, faithful to

    his pledge, bitter in combat, sweet in his waters.

  50. So take her maidenhood—virgin as the sun—and hear

    in your praise a virgin panegyric and rhymes.

  51. Pearls, when strung upon the paper, become

    visibly bashful within their shells.

  52. Aspiration reaches far; were it embodied as a

    person, it would rank among the foremost nobles.

  53. You alone are for us, O sons of Ayyub,

    a pillar we seek out in circumambulation.

  54. You have surpassed all peoples in root and branch,

    through your ancient glory or glory newly added.

  55. And faces fashioned from modesty,

    and souls of a transparent essence.

  56. May you endure, for our souls soar

    with your aspirations above all baseness.

Sol 6.1