Sol 5.6

  1. I would ransom a countenance whose lineaments proclaim its noble lineage—

    a cheek like the full moon, a glance like an arrow.

  2. By God, what a heart—amid ardent passion and consuming love—

    knowingly led astray by the eyes of beauties!

  3. I stood at the beloveds’ dwelling, lamenting

    what the days had worn away from it and from my body.

  4. My tears submitted a petition among its traces,

    and longing signed it, proceeding in due form.

  5. Ah, what a flood of tears from one devoted to passion!

    It watered the earth until she no longer yearned for the season’s first rain.

  6. They say, “Beware your body’s sickness in love.”

    But where have I a body on which sickness may lay its hand?

  7. I fell in love, upon your cheeks, with the letter traced by their down;

    that letter left of me nothing but the name.

  8. If your beauty, unadorned, captivates every mind,

    what need has the exquisite cheek of ornament?

  9. Was your glance not enough—the glance that struck, then became intoxicated?

    In neither state was it free of the taint of sin.

  10. And a smiling mouth, wherein the pearls are peerless orphans,

    with none of orphanhood’s abasement upon their strings.

  11. In his cruelty he turns from the guiltless lover;

    I know for certain that he began the wrongdoing.

  12. May the morning rain water my youth and youthful passion,

    for I lived only in nights—and in a dream.

  13. And may it revive the dwellings at al-Naqā and their spring encampments,

    where I built slender figures upon ḍamm—embrace and grammatical joining.

  14. A time whose gifts obeyed my command—

    but they turned away and vanished against my will.

  15. I hoped Ahmad’s beneficence would bring me consolation,

    and communed with the star’s face, so certain was my fancy.

  16. My hope set forth, casting its omen with assurance,

    and poetry’s rhymes arose to gaze upon the star.

  17. If they do not find the Chief Judge of all judges as their rain-cloud,

    what man could water them with abundant gifts?

  18. An imam whose glory rose beyond the furthest reach of praise,

    until we came to reckon praise of him a kind of blame.

  19. It did not suffice him to banish poverty from the people through generosity

    until he banished ignorance through learning.

  20. You see delegations and dignitaries coming from around his person,

    as eyes lift and fasten upon the full moon.

  21. Their mouths kiss the edges of his carpet,

    while the mouths of bright stars fall short of reaching his sleeve’s hem.

  22. I marvel at one who fells his enemies through sheer awe

    and strikes with such force—how can he be called forbearing?

  23. And at one who spares the culprit and extends his clemency

    to every offender—how can he be called resolute?

  24. Before him wrongdoers presume upon his indulgence with their crimes,

    thereby revealing his ingrained gift of pardon through their wrongdoing.

  25. Seekers of bounty are summoned to him by his fame,

    as one seeking a caravan is guided by lofty mountains.

  26. He has a pen whose eloquence has loosed its reins;

    it coursed, and we cried, “A horseman of prose and verse!”

  27. Accustomed to creating, it gives birth to ecstasy,

    until we fancied it a branch of the grapevine.

  28. Through it, the Sacred Law nocked an unerring arrow;

    no wonder that through it his allotted share grew abundant.

  29. When its form flashes between nominative rise and genitive descent,

    you see judgments carried out with the decisive force of the jussive.

  30. Your excellence has turned them toward you from every direction,

    and praise of your eminence has traveled among Arabs and non-Arabs.

  31. If some striver thinks he can attain you in loftiness,

    then that supposition, in my judgment, deserves to be stoned.

  32. O son of nobles who fill its mountain passes

    with death and bounty on days of battle and of peace—

  33. I called upon you, putting forward no intercessor before you,

    nor any means save your immense nobility.

  34. I feared for my purpose—my ode—from every man but you,

    and found its fulfillment in the sea of your hand’s generosity.

  35. As for me, though I recount all the praise I have gathered,

    I am like one attempting to count the raindrops pouring down.

  36. And what can words say when describing the Star?

    Enough for you that God swore by the Star.

Sol 5.6