Sol 6.1

  1. Stop, you two, in tears' keeping amid the pleasure grounds.

    And desist: humiliation is no inescapable decree.

  2. I mingled the rain in its two courtyards with my tears;

    how many a pool is forbidden to a drinker!

  3. The eye's tears would not have reddened but for longing

    for women with red ornaments, white necks and collarbones.

  4. Of branches, I love every slender one

    that, bending, mimics every slim-waisted maiden with budding breasts.

  5. Was it a herd of gazelles that appeared on the day of Suwayqa

    that I asked you two about, or were they a bevy of maidens?

  6. Ruthless ones who hear no complaint—as though

    enemies' hearts lay in beloveds' bodies.

  7. Suns rising in the orbits of their necklines,

    setting away from me in the sky of their shoulders.

  8. They veiled themselves in dawn until, when it betrayed them

    with its lights, they followed it with deepest darkness.

  9. May you two never taste what I tasted when they aimed

    eyelid-arrows from the [bows] of eyebrows.

  10. My two friends, what have I to do with love's torment? It is as though

    the memory of departed nights renews it.

  11. Yet I approach the clan, overflowing with lances

    toward me, while night's wing is thickly fringed.

  12. And I meet the jealous young man, leaping like a lion,

    death for me in his fangs and claws.

  13. He seeks to catch me unawares but never succeeds,

    and strokes a flank that yields to no one tugging it.

  14. When homelands darken in the face of a quest,

    I don the deserts, making for white goals.

  15. Travelling by night, before darkness has shed the robe of its youth,

    and journeying while dawn's temple-lock is first to grey.

  16. And when forenoon's robe grows ample, I shed it

    over fleet, pale camels, as one sheds cloaks.

  17. And a land green to its edges, its soil drenched—

    I greeted crimson-tressed lightning on the way there at dawn.

  18. My companions were drunk with drowsiness, as though

    upon the saddle-forks they were the fingers of [a reckoner].

  19. I promised them the Chief Judge; as soon as he appeared,

    we dismounted and kissed our mounts' faces.

  20. We confronted time's reversals with the son of Muhammad,

    and they, like poverty's army, were the first to flee.

  21. There virtue's branch has tender growth

    that never withers, and generosity's water never runs dry.

  22. Cheerful of face while the nights scowl,

    lavish in gifts when every avenue narrows.

  23. Whenever a pitch-dark night of calamity grows black,

    he journeys with noble deeds in the dawn of experience.

  24. Silent gifts tell of his blessings,

    and tongueless saddlebags proclaim his bounty.

  25. Through Muhyi al-Din, son of Kamal, we warded off

    events that were like arrows striking home.

  26. We drew the swords of praise before his qualities,

    and they were sheathed in the heads of bounty and hopes.

  27. A youth whose people are red in spearhead and battle,

    green in sanctuary and peace, white in virtues.

  28. When they draw Indian steel, their swords become

    thunderbolts from their hands amid clouds.

  29. And if drought's assault is feared, they are looked to and give drink to

    the lances of hopes from the breasts of bounty.

  30. He has Shayban's grey-haired elders; their hands have blunted

    the cutting edges of the years' inescapable hardships.

  31. They brought the morning rain clouds back, bewildered,

    telling marvels of their faith.

  32. When the caller of expectation summons them, they unleash

    the certainty of gifts upon false conjectures.

  33. They have branded time's neck with their generosity,

    and their ancestral honor has not been branded by calamities.

  34. They shoe lean, mature steeds with crescents,

    as they tip their Khatti spears with stars.

  35. When the night of battles grows dark, they raise

    lance-stars that guide the lightning of keen swords.

  36. Yes, they are the hallmark of rhymes and their suitors,

    which once were unmarked and would yield to no suitor.

  37. Their flat side is life for a friend at peace,

    their edge, death for an enemy at war.

  38. Branches of noble deeds, their branches rising tall

    with brown lances and lean thoroughbreds,

  39. with a sleek, tall mare and doubled mail,

    a brown, quivering lance and a white, cutting sword.

  40. On a morning when the earth seems a parchment, and their host

    its lines, the lance-tips a scribe's vowel marks.

  41. It rebuffs calamity's address before it reaches their petitioners,

    and turns back misfortune's fang with its edge dulled.

  42. Dauntless men: their swords against their enemies

    are no sharper than their writings among the battalions.

  43. When they lead their lean, mature steeds to a raid,

    with them they make the east wind and south winds envious.

  44. And if they call out in drought, when the bough is dry,

    they show you earth's seas as mere rivulets.

  45. Through might they strike every calamity with abasement,

    and every orator with [speechlessness] beside their eloquence.

  46. A refuge for the distressed, ornaments for the unadorned,

    safety for the frightened, and wealth for the earner.

  47. The souls of humanity at the forefront of assemblies,

    the hands of death in the hearts of marching hosts.

  48. Abu Hamid, this is the praise through which—

    by your honor—every right and duty is discharged.

  49. It rises so high no poet's thought can reach it,

    and proves so elusive no seeker's resolve can attain it.

  50. It illuminates the sun's beacon, never dimming,

    and endures through time, never departing.

  51. And these are the rhymes within whose domain

    my presence and my side have ever been hoped for and feared.

  52. Who, then, will convey a message from me to the kings?

    Sincere counsel never fails among the noblest:

  53. that you have given loyal zeal its full due,

    and spared no effort in safeguarding the outcomes.

  54. You aided them when no one else did, and they were encompassed

    by your loyalty when every companion betrayed them.

  55. A person's lineage is nothing but his conduct;

    and if it is not that, it is the adornment of kinship.

  56. You kept vigil for the king's cause while the sword slept,

    so the helplessness of lances and cavalry became plain to him.

  57. I swear—and no present man's blade was drawn for it,

    nor did he need an absent man's help in it.

  58. You sufficed as you did, while all others were superfluous,

    and repelled time's calamities from every side.

  59. No wonder: the stars are many,

    but distinction belongs only to the piercing-bright stars.

Sol 6.1