Sol 6

  1. Love has a desire in those domed tents,

    If Murad would favor the lovesick, yearning one.

  2. Let your passion beguile you; brave young men

    Have renewed their protection of a girl of Najd.

  3. How long will you keep up this show of endurance? Love will grant you

    Union only when your sword belt has grown long.

  4. O noble doe of the herd, whose clear spring of love

    Is open for her to drink while other drinkers are kept away!

  5. Why have the hunters failed to catch you by a trick?

    Gazelles are coaxed, then caught.

  6. If a night companion leaves the acacias of your valley,

    At every lookout they have a trembling fear.

  7. Yet amid them there shimmered for the lover

    A cooling draught that soothed his burning thirst.

  8. Whenever I lower my head, my visitor never ceases:

    Longing returns as a fever returns to one bitten by a snake.

  9. Your coldness keeps sleep from visiting me,

    So that your familiar image cannot visit me.

  10. Do not sever the bond of dreams in avoidance;

    In them lies some relief for the want of union.

  11. What harm if you are sparing even with a greeting,

    When your phantom was once generous with embraces?

  12. Why not take the sickness from a body whose heart

    Was enclosed with you beneath a bed curtain?

  13. Or visit me in love's illness? For love

    Prolongs a young man's wasting, and he must be visited.

  14. Enough! If I did not fear startling you by coming at night,

    My pillow would lie nearer, or my nighttime stay grow longer.

  15. I would reach your curtain wearing loose mail,

    With no cloak besides a sword slung across me,

  16. And sway, drunk on the sweetness of your lips, till I had

    A pillow in what that bracelet encloses.

  17. So promise me my wish; your people's threats cannot

    Prevent the promised meeting from being claimed.

  18. I yearn for the roses of your cheeks when swift, sleek horses

    Carry me to pluck them, coming to your spring.

  19. And I delight in the perfume whose scent rises

    When saffron is mixed with your fragrant body.

  20. Resolve, once it sets out for the protected dwelling, is not turned back

    By spears whose way is to strike straight.

  21. Whoever does not know what a dullard is should know:

    It is one whom his homeland lulls away from opportunity.

  22. A gallant youth is one who, when hope rises high,

    Carries it through, whether by counsel or his own decision.

  23. Who will carry word from me to my loved ones, since

    Remembering them will not let my bed grow still?

  24. Do not despair: distance has sometimes led

    To a nearby home that gathers loved ones together.

  25. If I live abroad, I seek the places of generosity

    Whose lightning I glimpsed in the west.

  26. And if I keep my distance from the nobles of kings,

    They are servants; their king is Abbad.

  27. Glory excuses the parting of one who has gone away

    To see how its great works are built.

  28. Has word reached the one who formed such varied suspicions of me,

    With contrary guesses echoing among them,

  29. That I saw both Mundhirs

    In a kingdom whose being corruption had not changed?

  30. I saw too the two cloaks inherited from Muharriq,

    Still unworn while other cloaks wear out.

  31. And in Amr of the Collar I recognized his vengeance

    For the fair Jadhima when he was deceived.

  32. And a star brought me to Numan in his day of delight,

    A star whose good fortune his birth had met.

  33. Their scattered qualities have been joined in one man:

    If he is not all of them together, he nearly is.

  34. It was as though I had seen them by making a visit

    That even Urwa, famed for visits, could not make,

  35. In a king's palace like al-Sadir, or like the one

    On which Sindad set its battlements.

  36. There you would imagine the gray horse to be a troop,

    In a courtyard where al-Yahmum is a steed.

  37. Amid the prancing of dapple-gray horses there move

    White steeds, curled like keen-edged swords.

  38. With the house of Abbad I made my stay, and my ambitions rose

    Securely above the towering mountains.

  39. They are the people of the Mundhirs, heights

    Above other kings, who are valleys beside them.

  40. A people whom, when Maadd counts a noble ancestress,

    It names Ma al-Sama; they are her children.

  41. A house for which the stars in their orbits would wish

    To serve as pegs in its construction.

  42. Its tent ropes stretch with the gifts of hospitality;

    Its pillars stand raised by bright swords.

  43. It is ancient: if the morning sun is not

    Its contemporary, then her stars are its peers.

  44. The pearls of their glory were strung upon Abbad,

    And the single gems shone among their beads.

  45. A king whose majestic qualities are so varied

    That numbers fall short of counting some of them.

  46. Zabid has forgotten its Amr; indeed, Iyad

    Has turned from praising Kab for generosity.

  47. He outdid the shrewd; had he lived before them,

    Al-Mughira would have yielded, or Ziyad conceded.

  48. His enemies cannot feel safe from his guesses,

    For unseen knowledge comes to their aid.

  49. A king: when the vanguard of an army prances forth,

    Its eagles are borne by lions.

  50. Lions whose prey in battle are horsemen,

    But whose claws there are spears.

  51. I thought the banner a cloud beneath whose shade

    Stood a moon, its bright face blazing with light:

  52. A bold one whose spearhead plunges into the enemy

    Amid battle dust where grudges run deep.

  53. The sun complains to him of his troop's dust,

    Which has kept her eye inflamed.

  54. An army whose birds range across the horizon

    With it, their provision pledged by keen swords.

  55. He seeks fresh glory; inherited glory

    That passes down through time is not enough for him.

  56. He would not turn to comfortable ease

    Until he had made another like himself immortal.

  57. His gathering is fragrant; whenever you gain his company,

    Conversation grows sweet and recitation gives off perfume.

  58. If his encompassing mind were divided

    Among creation, even stone might nearly be felt to think.

  59. My life be your ransom, O king whose face

    The bright stars envy.

  60. You wear a mantle of beauty

    Toward which affection draws people's souls.

  61. A first glance at you does not satisfy the eye;

    Were it not for awe, it would look again and again.

  62. Whenever there is a breach, you close it,

    Or a crookedness in time, you set it straight.

  63. Religion is a face, and you are its bright brow;

    Kingship is an eyelid, and you are its pupil.

  64. God has given you a hand raised high, with which you grant

    A gift that wins praise or release a captive's bonds.

  65. If the mouths of kings could agree

    In praising it, good fortune would agree with their lot.

  66. Despair of you has helped your enemies, for

    It has cooled the burning in their hearts.

  67. Anyone who vies with you withdraws with his steps constrained,

    As though shackles had bitten into him.

  68. I have told the reciter your praises as a chapter

    Whose text leaves people no room to dissent.

  69. Repeat the account of sovereignty:

    Such a tale does not weary when retold.

  70. Generosity like rainwater, through which shines

    Courtesy like a meadow on high ground, richly watered;

  71. And fine qualities whose flowers make time bloom,

    So that its days seem festivals.

  72. O king beneath whose shade

    Time is trained and its reins made compliant,

  73. O best of those supported by one whose decrees

    Are his arms in every difficulty:

  74. When my hopes came to drink at your court,

    Their pools filled to overflowing for me.

  75. The sun greeted me with an open palm,

    From whose bounty the sea itself draws sustenance.

  76. If I boast of what I have attained, it would be little for me

    Not to have the stars among my provisions.

  77. Whatever praise I gave another before you

    Was only a digression on the way to praising you.

  78. Horsemen frequent the parade grounds for a time

    So that pursuit may teach them combat.

  79. I shall trail the hem of hope across a court

    Where my wishes are fulfilled and increased.

  80. And a servant shall gain distinction along with wealth,

    Giving counsel when gifts are given to him.

  81. You are too noble in character to let

    My precious treasures find no welcome with you.

  82. Far from it: dawn has promised the night traveler

    That his striving will win lasting praise.

  83. May you never lack a store of good fortune

    That remains, with no exhaustion following its endurance.

Sol 6