Sol 5.6

  1. To you I complained of parting’s pain;

    for among my companions there is none but you to whom I may complain.

  2. I pass the night, my tears streaming across the page,

    not content to remain at the corners of my eyes.

  3. A fire of passion blazes within my ribs—

    God shield you from it: my burning is its warning.

  4. Who, then, can bring me deliverance, when my soul,

    from those two opposites, has risen to my collarbones?

  5. O people, is there in the encampment a healer to charm me?

    Is there a protector for one whom longings have maddened?

  6. For Ahmad Izzat is my longing, and he suffices me—

    for, by your father, happiness forms no part of my lot.

  7. He is the keen, deep-cleaving sword unsheathed

    from the sons of al-Faruq—Iraq’s prodigy.

  8. When the horsemen race one another in pursuit of rhymes,

    Ahmad carries off the race’s prize.

  9. Whenever he is brief, a mere trace leaves us drunk;

    and when he speaks at length, it is from a brimming cup.

  10. He shows us pearls strung into speech,

    not one straying from the beauty of harmonious order.

  11. Its beginning and its end are equal in excellence,

    and between them lie rare gems in ordered array.

  12. A man of letters whom no man of letters can rival;

    no one has reached even the trail by which to catch him.

  13. His approval of my words comes from nothing but

    a nature in him molded in sincere friendship.

  14. If Ahmad finds my words sweet,

    while people say, “No—it is bitter to the taste,”

  15. then their judgment is nothing to me:

    the sea’s son is he from whom the channels flow.

  16. I wrote al-Fāriyāq while within my heart

    rankled grievances against the Lady of the Girdle.

  17. What grieved me made the calamity still worse,

    and the hypocrites wore my heart away.

  18. When there is no loyal man among them—fidelity lies unsold;

    while the guileful hypocrite does brisk trade in hypocrisy.

  19. Thus I encountered torment at their hands,

    and God suffices me—He knows what I endure.

  20. So if I have done it well, that is all I seek;

    otherwise, al-Sāq’s fault still remains.

Sol 5.6