Sol 6.1

  1. Why is your prayer's odd number never made even?

    And why is my singular self among you never made plural?

  2. How long shall I hope for nearness to you, while your suns

    are beyond Joshua's power to bring back to me?

  3. You went away, and after you I made the doves

    my companions; yet I lament while they coo.

  4. After you I tore my collars, and tears tailored

    from them for me robes with crimson folds.

  5. How long must I seek the Salsabil of union with you

    and be turned away from it, while my affliction is not content?

  6. I truly marvel that your pledges are preserved

    with me, while my body lies forsaken among the ruins.

  7. Wasting sickness forsook my body, since separation joined you,

    for no place remained in it for wasting sickness.

  8. Five things shared in killing my sleep:

    nightly wakefulness and the four tears.

  9. How wondrous are the volleys of arrows from your eyelids!

    They strike the hearts and find a lodging there.

  10. And in my heart's blood is a fire that upon your cheeks

    blazes, while beauty's water wells from it.

  11. By God, O dark-lipped ones, to your ardent lover

    pay the alms due on their treasures; do not withhold them.

  12. You girdled my waist with the ring of my little finger,

    for through you my body and finger have become alike.

  13. And grant recovery to the one wasted by you, whose girdle

    is studded with precious rubies of tears.

  14. Your eyelids denied shedding my blood; your cheeks

    bear a suspicion of it that cannot be dismissed.

  15. You reproached me when, through loving you, I cast off

    my excuse—yet with you my excuse goes unheard.

  16. If you cast spells with your wide eyes,

    you would know of me that my excuse is wider still.

  17. How many, O chiefs of the clan, upon your breasts,

    are snakes that creep toward my heart and sting!

  18. How many a moon among you is veiled in radiance,

    and a sun's brow masked in darkness!

  19. How wondrous—how many, in your covert's wide-eyed gazelles' eyes,

    are lions that charge and fell another!

  20. The dominions of spears usurped the boughs of your forms;

    then they grew pliant and supplicant before their might.

  21. Your eyelids pressed bright sword-edges into service,

    so their rebellious ones answer them obediently.

  22. All barriers between me and you on the day of separation

    vanish at farewell, except the veil.

  23. Would that, for the arrows of their glances, it became

    a target, for their arrows' piercing cannot be repelled.

  24. How can I visit, when before your dwelling

    stand leveled brown spears and gleaming bright swords?

  25. The breeze is barred there from embracing its boughs;

    the east wind's hand, were it to clasp them, would be cut off.

  26. O neighbors who wronged me and shook

    my heart, and rocked the pillar of my patience!

  27. What means have I, after gray hair, to reach union with you,

    when my youth is of no use with your beauties?

  28. I complain to my age of your cruelty, though it is

    one of its calamities—and the most dreadful of them.

  29. O heart, do not encounter it, nor trust

    its smiling welcome, for it is feigned.

  30. Do not seek strength in its kindness, for it is

    a trap that plots and deceives with its bait.

  31. How many among its sons are tyrants who complain of wrong,

    like a wolf that hunts the gazelle and comes forth!

  32. No noble, worthy giver remains to be hoped in,

    except Ali and the pouring clouds.

  33. Son of the noble, brother of rainclouds, possessor of the

    perfect bounty, the splendid brother of Husayn.

  34. A generous man unrivaled in giving, even though

    the clouds' dripping has come to follow his palm.

  35. He pours forth, and the rainclouds pour forth; yet

    this is his nature, while theirs is mere imitation.

  36. How wondrous: a lightning flame that never goes out

    in his two palms, and a steady rain that never ceases!

  37. A sea whose watering-place is sweet in days of peace,

    he turns in war to a fire that scorches.

  38. Were moons to swim in an orbit within him,

    they could not rise a single day throughout the year.

  39. And were the horizon's whale to dwell in a deep sea,

    the darkness would almost lift because of its ambergris.

  40. He brought noble deeds from nothing into being, then

    from them shapes whatever he wishes and creates anew.

  41. Keen-witted, his heart was illuminated by his mind,

    so his blades glitter within his consciousness.

  42. As though the sun's orb were a nursing breast,

    giving him the milk of morning and suckling him.

  43. With him, the seeker of his bounty finds his hardship sweet,

    and almost covets the pearls of the stars.

  44. Night travel thirsts his steeds in warfare,

    until they almost drink from the river of the Milky Way.

  45. He surpassed kings, though his clay is of their clay;

    among stones, too, are jewels and soft white pebbles.

  46. He gazes lovingly at shields of iron, as

    the destitute man gazes at silver coins.

  47. He inclines, enamored, toward spears, as though

    a lover infatuated with beauties' statures.

  48. You would think him a heart in the breast of the army,

    with ribs of sharp swords on either side.

  49. He strikes, while the gaping mouths of wounds

    complain, and the tongues of spearpoints sting.

  50. His sword was not sated by the water of the Euphrates,

    like fire, which is never filled by its kindling.

  51. Were his openhanded spirit, in giving, to shake

    a trunk, it would almost sprout pearls.

  52. Every living soul speaks constantly of his praise; if

    the lifeless could speak, it would proclaim it aloud.

  53. Heads bow before his might in awe,

    and faces submit and bow before his face.

  54. He appears: how many a petition, backed by intercession,

    for some need is offered up and raised to him!

  55. To the mines of sustenance, from his sleeves,

    run paths, and within them the two seas meet.

  56. How wondrous that he fits a shirt, though,

    were he a sun, no barren plain could contain him!

  57. No adversary's arrow shall ever reach him,

    even if he drew it in the bow of the stars.

  58. The days obey him, so that if he wished

    them back to their past, they would return.

  59. Seekers of bounty saw his giving and rejoiced;

    his enemies saw his combat and said, 'To God we return.'

  60. O son of the auspicious men who, over mankind,

    by their excellence secured pledges and received allegiance!

  61. They inherited high rank, and from their fathers

    learned the roots of noble deeds and made them branch.

  62. Without your bounty, al-Hawz is nothing but an eye,

    stricken, whose tears never sleep.

  63. Its eastern horizons put on darkness, so its sun

    does not shine clear until your brow rises.

  64. You revived it by returning after its death,

    as rain's return revives the abodes.

  65. You parted from it, and its heart, like Moses' mother's,

    reveals its yearning, empty and aching.

  66. You returned rejoicing; the meeting brought peace

    to its eye, and its frightened heart grew still.

  67. A great tree upon it called to you out of light,

    pure, with the purest and most flourishing roots.

  68. You trod the noblest ground, already sanctified,

    and donned honor's robe as your sandal was removed.

  69. You were singled out there for the vision, and won

    the honor of being addressed; your hearing found delight.

  70. May you enjoy that exalted honor, and may

    the loftiest ancestral glory triumph in your return.

  71. My lord, I did not offer poetry to you out of

    greed, nor do I disdain your giving.

  72. But I feared its pearls would be stolen by the

    would-be poets, and squandered on anyone but you.

  73. Love for you compelled me to this, and love

    is magic through which poetry is born and fashioned.

  74. So unveil her, a virgin whom praise adorns

    with its pearls and wraps in silk.

  75. A virgin already led in bridal procession to you; only

    union with her is forbidden to anyone but you.

  76. She has embroidered her mantle with your radiant praise,

    as though it were variegated with silk.

  77. She clung to your hems, and thus were scented

    her sleeves and arms with your fragrance.

  78. A beloved who unveiled herself for you, her face

    veiled by me in the beauty of an apology.

  79. She feared sharing the guilt of my staying

    away from you, so she hastened into your presence.

  80. She went ahead to intercede for me with you; only the

    beautiful face is accepted as an intercessor by the noble.

  81. Radiant, she rises on the horizon of your praise,

    and her ending is musk that spreads its fragrance through you.

Sol 6.1