Sol 6.1

  1. This is Mayya's abode, O you freed from reproach.

    So halt the mounts, if ever you have halted at a dwelling.

  2. There the mouths of lightning smile,

    and the great trees dance to the nightingale's song.

  3. Between a shield of pooled water, warding off

    the cloud's arrows, and a sword made from a stream,

  4. clear—when rising water clothes its body

    in the rust of debris, the north wind polishes it.

  5. And a spear above the surface of a linked

    coat of supple mail was the ban bough above the pool.

  6. The rainclouds' gaping wounds pour forth,

    and you see lightning's sword without a notch.

  7. A war: thunder's rumbling is the sound of its bows,

    and the clouds' black mass is the dust of battle.

  8. Eyes paused there like one bewildered,

    and the clouds approached with a burdened gait.

  9. The earth smiles through the mouths of its daisies,

    rejoicing at the raincloud's beaming face.

  10. And the hills trail, from it, in rain's robes of honor,

    striped, some safflower-dyed and others sandalwood-dyed.

  11. So pass the winecup there: its radiance

    shoots at sorrow and strikes its fatal spot.

  12. As though sleep's grip upon an eye

    kept sleepless resembled the wine's grip upon a joint.

  13. As though in molten gold were dyed

    the cupbearers' hands, to their fingertips.

  14. And a pedigreed wine, its ancestry tracing to al-Bar-

    dan, or attributed to Qutrabbul,

  15. from the hand of a slender youth, like a bough swayed

    by youthful pride—or of a doe with her fawn.

  16. She unveiled a radiant sun in the darkness,

    and he gazed with the dark-rimmed eye of a gazelle.

  17. At the morning's revelry, I see youth remind us,

    and rise to remember the earliest days.

  18. As though a ban bough among its leaves

    were a slender woman strolling with a trailing sleeve.

  19. And the breeze's fragrance hastens its kindness;

    there is no good in kindness unless it is prompt.

  20. A wedding-feast of delights, its sun grown gentle,

    at times concealed, at times appearing.

  21. The following rain, with its gloom, aided the first seasonal showers,

    like Nasir al-Din's bounty, poured forth for a friend.

  22. The speaker and the doer, while the rain-stars withhold

    their rain; the shrewd, resourceful man,

  23. just in his judgments through fear of his Lord,

    when time, like its people, has not been just.

  24. So people, through his alms, live in a downpour

    of bounty, and through his resolves, in a stronghold.

  25. If his delegation did not travel by the stars' guidance,

    they would journey by his brow's light through trackless lands.

  26. A companion of death-dealing swords, alongside the

    racing steeds, alongside the slender lances.

  27. A son of courage and bounty, with both he seeks refuge

    in a lineage noble in paternal and maternal kin.

  28. With his arrow he strikes the quarry's flank,

    as though he shot with a glance let loose.

  29. The foe's poison, the doom of eyes and kidneys,

    the wild ass's fetter, the fleeing ostrich's appointed death.

  30. He outdid the blades and lances; from their anger comes

    the trembling in the bodies of their supple shafts.

  31. His heart reaches the hidden secret,

    beneath the mail, in the darkness of battle-dust.

  32. If he aimed his swaying spear at someone far away,

    he would strike the precise bloodletting point in the arm's median vein.

  33. Striving toward the utmost goals as his forebear strove,

    through him the later one learned the earlier one's shortcomings.

  34. Was not his father the master of the battle that left

    the dawn of wrongdoing like enveloping darkness?

  35. No love-stricken wanderer crosses the soil

    within it, and its running water is not lawful.

  36. He rode life toward death, nor was he

    stingy even with his own lifeblood.

  37. He turned back the champions; then, like youth, he is borne

    by the backs of a lightning-steed, shod with crescents.

  38. Had his resolves sought the bright stars of night,

    they would have taken every spoil from Simak the Unarmed.

  39. Unlike other men, he never grows uneasy at a night-visitor,

    even if it is one of the calamities descending.

  40. He is the generous son of the generous, the man in whom hope rests,

    son of the feared; the warrior, son of the lavish giver.

  41. They are the bulwark for every unguarded frontier,

    and the clarity for every perplexing affair.

  42. Among them a verse-maker who scattered thousands, and a prose-writer

    who arrayed the ranks with his spear and blade.

  43. His steeds trampled them like dry fodder,

    and bright swords reaped them like grain-ears.

  44. Indeed, he revealed his loftiness through an edifice

    that looked down upon the bright stars from above.

  45. Lofty; for visitors, within its precincts

    is all the shade and sweet-flowing water you could wish.

  46. And fresh green gifts that soften, though harsh

    be the age, and flourish in a time of drought.

  47. Eyes stretch toward its highest reach, because it

    shortens the steps of those who ponder and those who hope.

  48. A maiden born of creative minds, unveiled to listening ears

    forever, and sought in marriage by the gathering's tongue.

  49. White in the pitch-black age, as though she were

    morning's marking upon the wing of a deeply dark night.

  50. Her growing places are sweet; you will never lack

    the fragrance of ban trees or the breath of clove.

  51. Proudly she sways amid her roses and daisies,

    between a blush-bringing cheek and a mouth to kiss.

  52. As though the freshly gathered blossoms were jewels,

    gleaming, some strung together and others set apart.

  53. And you can almost discern, in the facades of her structure,

    beauty's pride and the dignity of the humble.

  54. As though she were a fair one among her sisters,

    strutting in robes of loveliness and jewels.

  55. She grew so tender that her breath could almost melt

    the solid rocks and make them flow like water.

  56. How many a night for nightfarers there, when she faces

    the full moon—a night white-blazed and white-stockinged!

  57. Like the union one desires, or like youth

    most cherished, or like the beloved approaching.

  58. She was adorned with one whose splendor is lovelier to the eyes

    than hers, and sweeter and more beautiful to the hearts:

  59. the goal of petitioners, who lavishes his wealth

    on them, but never spills the water of their faces.

  60. He sheds bounty's dew, though no petition has lifted his veil;

    a brother of bounty gives even when not asked.

  61. A king to whom we escort my slender, noble maidens,

    as a beloved is led to a gracious beloved.

  62. Ta'i in manner: difficult, yet easy in her wording;

    look at the difficult and impregnable, rendered easy.

  63. She shuns far-fetched meaning and the ugliness of

    repeated description and speech locked shut.

  64. The solitary's comfort, an approach for one setting out toward

    his needs, and the supplicant's means of access;

  65. and a treasure fathers leave their sons in

    a state of abiding, and fine provision for one hurried onward.

  66. She protects where the polished sword cannot cut

    with its edge, nor the lion of the lair strike fear.

  67. Offered to the Khidr of generosity and bounty

    is the daughter of forceful eloquence, to the generous, lavish giver.

  68. She unveiled: the surface of her face comes from a luminary;

    she breathed: her breath comes from aloeswood.

  69. She was enamored of his countenance, and he of her beauty.

    O the slanderer's wickedness, and the reproachers' helplessness!

  70. May you endure as long as she endures; the least of her lifespan

    would exhaust the longest lifetime of time itself,

  71. as safety for the frightened, the needy person's wish,

    a resting place for the outcast, and sufficiency for the destitute.

Sol 6.1