Sol 5.6

  1. Ḥafīr lies effaced of those you once knew there,

    then the hills of al-Siyāl, then al-ʿUwayr,

  2. then Shamāt, then Dhāt al-Rimth—all desolate,

    effaced since our departure by rain and swirling dust.

  3. Unrelenting rain, its cloudbursts streaming down—

    whenever I said it had relented, it surged anew.

  4. As though Mashrafī blades flashed upon its heights,

    and pilgrims’ fires blazed fiercely there,

  5. in every hollow and every mountain pass—

    a flood-pool whose dense, brimming water heaves.

  6. Al-Farāsha and al-Ḥubyā too lie deserted,

    and after Fāṭima, al-Shuqayr lies waste.

  7. The encampments journeyed away with her, then settled

    at Ḥazza, where the camel ranges freely.

  8. They carried us far away the morning they drew near it,

    while at al-Jawlān the she-camels yearned toward you.

  9. They loathed the flies of Dūma when they passed it,

    that morning when graves were opened for the dead.

  10. Would that the swift she-camels had brought Hind,

    so she might learn what the heart conceals for her.

  11. As though she were a radiant white cloud that spent the night

    unveiling her beauty from behind the curtains.

  12. The riding-camels have now arrived, hollow-eyed with travel,

    in a land where nothing foul may dwell.

  13. I swear by Him to whom the sacrificial beasts are driven,

    and by Him at whose Kaaba vows are fulfilled:

  14. Juzayma has indeed borne, from Quraysh,

    her young champion, when grave crises close around him—

  15. the noblest of her men in fields of trial, when

    their mettle is tested and throats are dyed with blood;

  16. the swiftest of them in marching toward the foe,

    when even the plodding horse is judged too slow.

  17. With him Quraysh strikes at her enemies

    whenever some momentous affair befalls her.

  18. Two kinds of day are his: a day of clashing with champions,

    and one when a rain-drenched man shelters beneath him.

  19. The reins are in his hands; he never wearies—

    a mighty slayer of non-Arabs, neither fretful nor complaining.

  20. You slew the Romans until bands broke away from them—

    bands that no longer circled the palaces.

  21. Even were the wars like the wars of ancient ʿĀd,

    he would stand steadfast upon their battlefields.

  22. Umayya well knows the rancor I bear toward her,

    while her enemies snarl against her;

  23. and that, as long as I live, I follow her cause,

    and in her absence remain her champion.

  24. Nothing survives the ravages of time except

    fate’s calamities and grievous, biting wounds.

  25. Whoever may strike down some mighty rival, I

    remain grateful for the favor of Banū Abī al-ʿĀṣ.

  26. I clung to your rope, and you made it fast:

    its strands are neither frayed nor short.

  27. An imam of the people—from among them come the caliphs—

    and young heroes by whom frontier breaches are secured;

  28. and many a dark wrong my strength cannot encompass,

    for which even the solicitous champion leaves me to act—

  29. they spared me that burden and did not pass it among themselves,

    with mettle neither feeble nor prone to stumble.

  30. Were it not for you, I would hate my Maʿaddite kin—

    you are my refuge now that grayness shows upon me.

  31. Yet I stand in awe of you and place my hopes in you,

    though the roaring of the lion reaches me.

  32. And you—when every quarter fought against you,

    and the cauldrons boiled with all they held—

  33. struck down the proud with swords until

    their clatter and their roaring died away.

  34. Whenever one serpent among you disappears,

    another rises fiercely among you, full-grown and male.

  35. You were granted victory over your enemies,

    and through it you saw clearly while the people were blind.

  36. It had been darkness, and you swept it away;

    by your hands its veil was drawn aside.

  37. If the months themselves could mourn my people,

    the months would surely weep to lose you.

  38. Excellent in times of crisis is the tribe of ʿAbs,

    when the west wind makes the acacias tremble—

  39. open-handed through the winter when hardship bears down,

    and the slaughter-camel grows scarce when it must be shared.

  40. The sons of ʿAbs are horsemen every day;

    heads nearly fly away for fear of them.

  41. Faithful to their obligations, they lodge their guests among them

    in dwellings where misery never comes to stay.

  42. They were the ones who rallied to al-Nuʿmān when

    a herald brought him the crown of kingship;

  43. thus they repaid him for his favors toward them,

    on the day al-Khawarnaq and al-Sadīr were his.

  44. Both your ancestral houses, Kaʿb and ʿAbs,

    are seas no other seas can equal.

  45. Whichever of his earliest forebears may be chosen—

    I, O Walīd, take pride in them.

  46. And refuge is sought with Ibn Zinbāʿ whenever

    the countryside’s abundance recedes: his are the cup and the slaughtered camel.

Sol 5.6