Sol 6.1

  1. He gazed, and his dark eye drew against the lovers

    A sword against them, breaking the bright blades' pledge.

  2. And he swayed proudly, bending within his thin tunic

    A figure whose dusky spear flowed with the crimson of deaths.

  3. And he smiled, revealing pearls: their whiteness never gleamed

    Without the ruby of my tears flowing red.

  4. Oh, the bān-tree's jealousy when his sash-clad form bends!

    And lightning's shame when his serrated teeth appear!

  5. With my heart's blood I ransom the deep blackness flowing in his eye;

    I know death only when I behold him.

  6. And with my eyelids, the beauty beneath his veil;

    Dawn brightens only when he unveils that beauty.

  7. In the church of beauty, an idol is revealed in him;

    The faith of Christ is strengthened by his conversion.

  8. He has a face: if my glances dye it crimson,

    The robe of darkness dyes it saffron with my complexion.

  9. I shared the rose's two colors with him: its red

    Is on his cheeks, and its yellow on mine.

  10. Slender of figure, his girdle is idle talk; it contains

    A meaning like an omitted term a grammarian supplies.

  11. Bare of hair upon his cheek, there creeps

    A mole whose diminutive is ascribed to musk.

  12. In his languid eyelid there is a likeness to death;

    Thus its verbal noun was derived from its past tense.

  13. Crowned with gray hair's daylight, I was turbaned by him

    When his bright orb veiled itself in pitch-dark night.

  14. Never did the maharaja of his forelock charge amid his army

    Against the full moon's radiance without its Caesar fleeing.

  15. Nor did his cheek's down stir the smoke of fragrant aloeswood

    Without gray hair—a mote in my eye—having its censer blaze.

  16. Perfume took shape upon his cheeks when they sprouted:

    Its camphor whitened, and its ambergris blackened.

  17. His eyes' magic he attributes to Harut,

    And his cheeks' script he copies from Kafur.

  18. My ear receives pearls from his utterances

    Strung together; then my eye steals them and scatters them.

  19. Indeed, by coral branches in their garden,

    From above a crystal tube which he encircles;

  20. And by the shīn of a honeycomb, honey-sweet at his kissing-place,

    And the qāf of a swaying figure, which he girdles;

  21. But for the silk of his sideburns, there would be no weaving of the—

    Brocade by my poetry, nor would my thought depict it.

  22. How long, O heart, will you give pure love to a fickle one?

    He never stays, and what clouds that love never clears.

  23. The fickle one, even if sincere with you, is cause for wonder,

    If his intoxicant changes or his sugar is spat out.

  24. O disappointment of striving! Youth has fled, yet never

    Have I attained my wish; most of my life has passed.

  25. So no beloved I once adored was faithful to me,

    Nor was a close friend I preferred sincere with me.

  26. Nor did I test a friend to whom I offered

    The purity of my heart without coming to beware of him.

  27. O Time, woe to you! Death is easier than

    A blameworthy man who, through you, harms me while I thank him.

  28. What is it between us? You never cease to hold me down

    If I rise toward glory, or to make my fortune stumble.

  29. Stinginess has indeed become a person before our eyes;

    So generosity has become a bygone age we cannot recall.

  30. And he who raised the banner of praise began to fold it,

    Had Barakat of glory not appeared to unfurl it.

  31. Master of bounty: were it not for his gifts,

    The jewels of our necklace of rhymes would lie unsold.

  32. He follows the first gift with a second;

    And the noblest cloud is one whose showers bestow gifts on you.

  33. God's secret, which He brought forth to creation

    In kindness, though the heart of the unseen almost concealed it.

  34. An enthroned ruler who rides into dreaded undertakings; and

    Over vipers his lion strides with him.

  35. As though death were bound to obey him

    In all that he forbids it and commands it.

  36. The pool of his armor embraces his sea of bounty;

    And his mail hood encloses his moon at the full.

  37. Generous, he shuns rebuking petitioners, nor withholds the—

    Orphan pearl from those who hope for it.

  38. He gives lavishly, offering no excuse

    To petitioners, nor postponing a promise.

  39. He has mastered the realm; let its foxes flee,

    For its lion has taken charge of the kingdom's army.

  40. Refined and discerning, his insight almost

    Tells him what is in your heart before you speak.

  41. No humiliation overtakes a neighbor who seeks strength in him,

    Nor does a terrified man whom he frightens see safety.

  42. Through his justice he abandons the feared oppressor,

    And supports the side of the wretched and oppressed.

  43. If a supplicant seeking bounty visits him, he honors him;

    And if a tyrant comes to him, he belittles him.

  44. His turban is wound around an exalted head,

    And his waistcloth is fastened over chaste loins.

  45. We know drought only during his absence,

    And see rain only when we behold him.

  46. His sword has allied itself with every calamity

    Of greatest magnitude; his dagger has shaken death's right hand.

  47. How often he raided while the stars of night had sunk,

    And dawn's ambergris was cut through by camphor!

  48. Then he returned, lions submissive in chains,

    And returned in triumph, the spoils his army.

  49. The dark steeds lie in ambush, and the brown spears of al-Khatt praise him;

    And the fair ones, pale and kept inviolate, magnify him.

  50. And the air's whiteness is like blackened dusk,

    And the sword's green is like crimson twilight.

  51. He is the high-minded hero whose lordship is assured,

    And whose lineage is derived from God's prophets.

  52. The enemies resolved to take away his light, but never

    Will they quench a light that God wishes to reveal.

  53. They seek to erase his name from the pages of his office,

    While God inscribes it on His Preserved Tablet.

  54. They rebelled against him; whoever makes his trade

    The wares of rebellion will one day have his commerce fail.

  55. They attempted treachery against him, though he was their security;

    And a traitor's own wickedness is enough against him.

  56. They plotted the affair in secret, while he trusted,

    And his Lord, above their hands, directed it.

  57. So they met woe and lasting grief, and never

    Saw anything in the affair whose sight brought joy.

  58. How many a mighty man's lions turned and fled before him,

    And how many a tent's covert had its wild-ox calf flee!

  59. My lord, may the world and its return bring you joy

    As it returns to you; the servant's herald of good news has arrived.

  60. And may pilgrimage to a house of yours gladden us, circling round

    The rites of righteousness, with kindness as its sacred station.

  61. And pelt the foes with arrows as pebbles, and hasten to

    A Minā of battle whose slaughter-ground terrifies the lion.

  62. And give the foe good news that rebellion will throw him down,

    And the demon of tyranny, that oppression will rout him.

  63. And behold the pearls of poetry, in wise sayings,

    Whose artful composition almost bewitches a man's eloquence.

  64. And remain throughout all time in might and honor,

    Whose glory rises above the revolving celestial sphere.

Sol 6.1