Sol 5.6

  1. The abandoned dwelling speaks, though it has no tongue,

    proclaiming through its decay that even the new will wear away.

  2. Campsites where partings gathered within their bounds,

    and there the clouds dispersed into scattered bands.

  3. My eyes brimmed from their inner corners, until

    I thought it was my very soul that flowed away.

  4. O Sahm, how can one sober from passion’s intoxication—

    a thirst-tormented man, served separation as his morning and evening draught?

  5. The heart has never ceased enfolding sorrow,

    while separation enfolds whoever loves.

  6. The nights decreed for themselves that they

    would part us forever, yet never part from one another.

  7. By my life, Time has indeed offered counsel—and truly it is

    a wonder: a counsellor who shows no mercy.

  8. If you disregard the lesson of events after

    it has become clear, how many a jewel goes unsold!

  9. Indeed, I am consolation itself: though a young man be denied riches,

    ample provision is allotted to the man for whom it is destined.

  10. A young man’s ambitions upon the earth are branches of wealth,

    planted, though they do not leaf every year.

  11. O ʿUtba ibn Abī ʿUṣaym, hear a curse,

    so hideous it pounds your ears and splits them.

  12. You fell silent when you saw me face to face, until, once

    you vanished from my sight, you kept blustering.

  13. Thus does a base man speak when distance carries him away

    from his foe and intervenes; then, for a while, he speaks boldly.

  14. A donkey saw the lion of the lair and was terrified,

    but when the lion turned away, it began to bray.

  15. Or like a wicked shepherd whose sheep were lost

    at night, then at dawn stood on a rise and cried out.

  16. Far from it—may destruction overtake you before you attain my glorious deeds!

    My arse is spacious, while your reach is short.

  17. Your roaming from one clan to another

    makes it seem your mother or father was quicksilver.

  18. Was it toward the sons of ʿAbd al-Karīm that your eyes looked askance?

    Woe to you—behind whose protection do you boast?

  19. A people whom you see, when calamity visits a clan,

    rise to meet the grave crisis—and it bows its head;

  20. a people who, when Time grows black, shine brightly

    within it, leaving Time piebald because of them.

  21. Among Jarm ibn ʿAmr there has always been one of them:

    a key to bounty’s door, which never closes.

  22. No cloud of noble deeds has ever arisen

    without pouring forth from their hands.

  23. Behold: wherever you see swords flashing,

    forever above their heads those swords glitter.

  24. Fierce warriors—when the eagle of their standard flaps,

    the very hearts of Death flutter in fear of them.

  25. Still more when they don iron: you would think them

    men who never imagined that Death itself could wear away.

  26. Say whatever you please, O son of Tarnā: rust

    does not cling to one who sends the eagles fleeing.

  27. Have you lived so long that you fault them? Tell me: when

    were you promoted to queen so swiftly? What speed, O pawn!

  28. May the nose of Ṭayyiʾ be shorn if you outstrip them,

    even if your soul were suspended from the star Simāk.

  29. I see that you dreamed you were safe

    from their assault—but not every dream comes true.

  30. It is you whom speakers mean when they say,

    “Surely the wretched man is strangled by every rope.”

  31. Travel wherever in the lands you please, for I have

    a wall of men against you, digging its trenches;

  32. and tribes whom the crowned ruler leaves alone for fear of them,

    as though the whole world had closed in upon him;

  33. and poems that journey by night to you as though they were

    nightmares of terror or calamities striking after dark—

  34. among them, poems that make you leap up or sit down in fear,

    aghast, until you seem seized by labor pangs—

  35. from a poet at whose gate all speech has come to a halt,

    and in whose shelter eloquence’s summit has taken refuge.

  36. Through him Syria was schooled, and the Hijaz made tractable;

    through him was the Hijaz subdued, while the East refined him.

Sol 5.6