Sol 6

  1. As for time, you have obliged it to become new.

    And noble deeds, you have created them anew.

  2. So fear became safety again, and open ground became sanctuary;

    Barren earth became fertile, and error became guidance.

  3. A ministry made necks bend in submission

    to its might, though we had known those necks to be proud.

  4. You left it not like rain withdrawing from a land

    that complains of thirst, but like a soul departing a body.

  5. You returned when turmoil had driven sleep away,

    turmoil for which a life once praised had come to be blamed.

  6. You stood against calamity's grip when it struck,

    and took its place against the turns of time when they attacked.

  7. Why should we blame a time that wronged us

    only to do well in fulfilling what it promised?

  8. Even one who rebukes it praises it,

    unaware of the purpose it intended.

  9. How many great favors it has bestowed on us,

    and blessings whose thanks can never be fully paid!

  10. Its calamities address you in admiration,

    and its injustice has testified to your extraordinary power.

  11. The imam protected the mighty realm through one

    whose bonds the passing nights cannot undo.

  12. He examined the people, then chose the best of them

    in judgment and belief, both in himself and in his household.

  13. He laid up their loyalty as provision for the Resurrection,

    lasting when every other worthy store is exhausted.

  14. You have never ceased to be unsheathed against falsehood

    and diligent in struggling against the enemies of the faith.

  15. You were honored before the imam honored you;

    a sword is feared and hoped for whether drawn or sheathed.

  16. Whenever you visit him seeking knowledge and wealth,

    the gathering overflows with eloquence and the fingertips with gifts.

  17. He makes even a thick, abundant rain seem miserly with a brief gift,

    and outstrips the bitter, wayward wind while walking calmly.

  18. A noble man whose character was made only for eminence,

    and who was born for nothing other than virtue.

  19. From afar he struck at calamities and hit them squarely

    with his resolve; when we asked of him, he gave without stint.

  20. Could a ruler ever contend with one who relied

    on this steadfast, vigilant, unrivaled man?

  21. How could one overtake you while the days race on,

    when whoever sought your equal in the world found none?

  22. Good fortune spread to all once you were singled out for it;

    so live safely, despite the envious and to the frustration of foes.

  23. They hid behind the hills of mist within their breasts,

    though they themselves are mists, with excessive submission for hills.

  24. Do not fear them; be assured concerning them

    that death will reach them before grief does.

  25. The leaders of the people are brought down by their own efforts

    to do what pleases you; do not dismiss small criticism.

  26. A house's central post may not resist its owner,

    yet pulling out a peg may prove hard for him.

  27. This is counsel needing no guidance for one

    who, since waking to high aims, has never slept.

  28. In offering this advice when it came to mind, I am

    like a mole showing a lion where to find the desert's sweet dates.

  29. In speech and deed you rose to the imamate,

    and through you it reached this lofty height.

  30. Thank the confidant of the Commander of the Faithful for the one

    who gave you a rank he had granted to no one.

  31. Judge everyone who seeks to defy him

    as your grandfather judged al-Nuʿmān when he rebelled.

  32. By spreading justice, you proved false the claim

    that Kisrā Anūshirwān was lost to the world.

  33. Your noble qualities brought you

    to a sea of distinction never before approached.

  34. At times you supported the holders of this office,

    giving strength to the humbled and lifting those who had fallen.

  35. Among the people, were you ever anything but a builder of honor,

    a reformer of what was corrupt, or a guide to the right path?

  36. Followers of your judgment discarded what you left aside;

    discussion of it ceased, while what you proposed was adopted.

  37. You joined forces with four of them and led them

    along paths from which those you left alone went astray.

  38. No deed you did, nor anything you commanded,

    carried blame or invited foolish reproach.

  39. Your father is a crown in which the scribal art takes pride

    when it boasts; your grandfather wore the crown that was bound.

  40. He sent forth horses whose reins could not be turned back

    when the blood upon them mingled with the uplands.

  41. They gallop bearing lions who, when battle comes,

    need no reinforcements, so true is their charge.

  42. If they fight, they force their enemies into obedience;

    and if they kill, they are not held to blood recompense.

  43. These are deeds without equal, and lofty honors

    you possess, both newly won and inherited.

  44. Let every pretender be sacrificed for these endeavors,

    driven from their pool or expelled from their garden.

  45. He imagines, as some people do, that they have gazed

    at the faint star Suhā with eyes afflicted by inflammation.

  46. How can any hopeful rival expect to reach their summit

    when you have set them neither limit nor end?

  47. Your generosity has reached everyone, leaving no hope unmet,

    and so has your forbearance, until no hand is stretched out to beg.

  48. You have not turned from a revealed verse on pardon,

    nor cast aside a report handed down about it.

  49. I marvel at a rich man whose hopeful petitioner

    goes empty-handed, and still more at a powerful man who bears a grudge.

  50. Both have gone astray: with guidance, one would relieve need,

    and the other would pardon gracefully or set wrongs right.

  51. How often you have filled the hands of petitioners with gifts,

    filling a thousand, then a thousand more, hand after hand.

  52. Your resolve alone spared you sending a threat ahead

    as a vanguard, and generosity's prompting spared you a promise.

  53. No one ordered to disobey you encounters you

    without meeting generosity long hidden, now made visible.

  54. You dispersed your wealth in duties, voluntary gifts,

    and customary good works, gathering scattered honor together.

  55. Wealth is like a spear: its keeper cannot hope for the praise

    given to one who directs it straight among his kin.

  56. How lofty, by God, is your noble lineage; how keen your edge;

    how much your earnest effort has prepared and made ready!

  57. Your virtues leave one who seeks to match them as powerless

    as one who tries to count them all.

  58. One lacking the means to attain them still lays claim to them;

    a liar's way is to bring faraway things close in words.

  59. He is like one speaking with a tongue no mouth surrounds,

    or striking with an arm severed from its upper arm;

  60. or like a lover whom the beloved visits only in his dreams

    while he is awake, though he enjoys union when asleep.

  61. Let the person of soaring hopes spare himself effort

    that he will waste, and let the envious person put envy aside.

  62. In you I found heights to which the eye's glance aspired,

    and for the steed of praise, a wide course to run.

  63. Thus praise won gifts for its reciter and its author,

    its memorizers, and whoever sang or chanted it.

  64. It travels to distant places however far away,

    and stays bound in people's hearts even as it roams.

  65. May you remain as long as festivals return,

    and may your life be long enough to exhaust eternity.

Sol 6