Sol 6.1

  1. Lo, by lightning's smile in the frowning gloom,

    The rain-clouds' eyes have embroidered the earth's cheek.

  2. Sky-necklaces, betrayed by their thread, sprang forth

    To array themselves upon the neck of plains and rugged ground.

  3. I praised the clouds' bounty for them; indeed, they

    Are most deserving of being prized and jealously kept.

  4. They unite beauty's opposites; seize,

    If you wish, a weeping eye or smiling teeth.

  5. Bring it, and take it—a Babylonian wine,

    A girl in the cup, though gray-haired in the cask.

  6. It has vanished—tell me, what is its spirit's true nature?

    The cup's body held nothing of it but a conjecture.

  7. It did not frolic at the tap out of folly;

    Rather, it was the playfulness of one freed from prison.

  8. The patter of its spray adorned the ears,

    And it trailed hems of its dark robes.

  9. Restore to me a mind that longing robbed; for

    Divorce from beauties lies only in recovering the mind.

  10. It is unfair to blame when you have never spent the night

    With your heart's daughters in rapture, or your eyelids sleepless.

  11. Do you reproach the Ya‘qub of longing and sorrow

    Because yearning stirs him toward the Yusuf of beauty?

  12. When I enter the fire of his cheeks with my gaze,

    How triumphant it is, strutting in two gardens of Eden!

  13. I recalled through it the fire of al-Khalil, when

    The Nimrod of gloom and sorrow had hurled my gaze into it.

  14. By your life, have you seen his brow's radiance

    On a moon, or the softness of his sides in a branch?

  15. When he removes his veil from the rose of modesty,

    His cheek is plucked, while his eye does injury.

  16. One of the wide-eyed beauties, he shields his eyes with his eyelid;

    How strange to defend a sword with its sheath!

  17. May God water and guard al-‘Udhayb and its remembered days,

    The idol of its valley and the slender-waisted beauty of its caravans.

  18. In longing for its slender ban-trees on the dunes,

    Swaying—and in torment over its soft-voiced gazelles.

  19. Had my tears not turned sweet, I would not have gone burdened

    With fair praise of the clouds, nor indebted to their favors.

  20. And how could it be, when my yearning, hearing whenever called,

    Is not deaf, nor my eloquent tears among the tongue-tied?

  21. If only I had power over those wide eyes,

    So I could take from them as much as they took from me.

  22. I swore by the Lord of the twin passes toward Mina,

    And by the offerings or sacrificial camels led to God,

  23. And by those disheveled faces obedient to guidance,

    And those who circled the Ancient House and the Corner:

  24. The dwellers among the ghada trees alone have claimed my heart,

    Just as King al-Mu‘izz alone has claimed my praise.

  25. From a people: each one's wealth has tasted—

    Vast though it be—bereavement, not delight in sorrow.

  26. You meet him on the day of terror enclosed in gleaming mail,

    Planting the sword's breast in his adversary's head.

  27. The hands of gifts have strung an amulet

    With which they guard against returning stinginess and cowardice.

  28. I think the dark cloud passed by his dwelling,

    And came away with a dripping hem and fragrant sleeve.

  29. His two hands guarantee success to every striver:

    His left brings ease, and his right good fortune.

  30. He takes the middle course in favor and in wrath,

    Shunning youthful ignorance or senile folly.

  31. A cloud of bounty, a lion of death, a cleaver of foes,

    A meteor of guidance, the morning sun, a moon in the murk;

  32. Of all mankind, the most lavish-handed and deftest-fingered

    With bright cutting swords and straightened, supple spears.

  33. His stance in generosity and giving

    Is like his stance amid blows and spear-thrusts.

  34. He softens and hardens, in mercy and ferocity;

    His bounty shields me, while his power annihilates.

  35. He is the sword: its flat is smooth,

    But beware its rough striking edges.

  36. He is the sea, bestowing chosen pearls

    In mighty favors free of reproachful reminders.

  37. A man not accustomed to gnashing his teeth in regret

    Over something precious, or biting his hands at loss.

  38. He keeps himself above deeds that deserve blame,

    And goes with eye, hand, and ear unsullied.

  39. He returns to the straight path of lofty glory—

    And enough for you is a verse free of error.

  40. He is a man who defies censure in generosity,

    Like his blade, refusing reproach and curses.

  41. He follows the creed the noble followed before him,

    And praises as his forebears used to praise.

  42. Though kings succeed through cities and villages,

    And rise high and range among fortresses and strongholds,

  43. He brings full moons and lofty stars,

    Surging seas of bounty and pouring clouds.

  44. Glory without arrogance, kingship without harm,

    Blessings without delay, resolve without weakness.

  45. A man whose palm has milked both halves of your time,

    And turned its two conditions over, back and belly.

  46. No turmoil in his entrails at a calamity,

    And no elation when time brings him security.

  47. The blows of ages pass across his breast

    Lightly, as the breeze passes over a mountain spur.

  48. The face of the earth blackens, and the horizon is gray;

    He meets you with lavish kindness and beauty.

  49. A king who, if he could achieve what he desires

    For his petitioner, would give him thousands of cities.

  50. His fingers lavished gold on me without measure,

    His bounty paying no heed to counting or weighing.

  51. A lord rescued me from time's grip,

    When I was captive in its hooked talons.

  52. He gave generously and praised me as he himself deserved,

    Raising my rank and adorning my ears.

  53. He proved my expectation true, though expectations are many;

    None equals my intuition about his bounty, or my expectation.

  54. Therefore my praise—and you already know it—

    Speaks plainly of him wherever I am; I use no veiled allusion.

  55. His rains of bounty and his aid come to me in succession;

    So I devoted my migration to him like a bonded servant.

  56. Every envious Abu Jahl I have assailed

    With a poem of flying words and far-ranging art,

  57. And a sea-like poem, bewildering in meter, that has left

    Its majesty even upon the vessel of meter.

  58. Sailors sing it on the sea, and the camel-drivers

    In the deserts, and the songbirds in their nests.

  59. The deserts almost recite it with the darkness,

    And even riding beasts chant it, together with ships.

  60. I buried my thoughts' daughters alive before meeting him—

    What a noble son-in-law they lost to burial!

  61. They are the enduring righteous works, everlasting,

    While wealth is prey to betrayers and ravaging forces.

  62. Through them the first age, now past, recedes into the distance;

    The breast has the credit of precedence, but the back has strength.

  63. A king bequeaths them to a king as inheritance,

    A generation to a generation, an age to an age.

  64. But for him, I would not have offered them after Yusuf

    To any giver, whether his bounty were sweet or stale and stagnant.

  65. May the years never cease to speak on your behalf

    Of the favors your two palms bestowed upon them.

  66. Their past looks back on what they witnessed from you,

    And their future rejoices in what they heard from me.

Sol 6.1