1. He renewed his complaint of the phantom that visited him often.

    Did you seek right guidance, or error and folly?

  2. It visited me while the whiteness of dawn was waiting;

    night's darkness had thinned away from it, or nearly had.

  3. What parting has not stirred sorrow,

    and what meeting has not been a tryst for grief's outpouring?

  4. You have ruined my mind; and a lover, by nature, when

    led toward something that ruins his mind, submits.

  5. The women who reproach me hope I will desist, but in my liver

    a fire blazes all the more when quenched.

  6. It is not our due from Sulayma that she should mete out to us

    denial through giving, and distance through drawing near.

  7. A herald from her met you on Saturday morning,

    announcing her intent; the harshest adversity is what comes at dawn.

  8. The days of parting once were Mondays, but now

    they are Saturdays we dread, and Sundays.

  9. A man's guides are the days counted out for him;

    they show him the right course through correction and guidance.

  10. And they may demand back the loan they advanced

    to him, stripping him of the surplus he had gained,

  11. until what was newly bought becomes worn-out,

    scorned by the eye, and what stood upright becomes bowed.

  12. You have asked much about Egypt's pampered rich; you will not

    find Thamud in its valley, nor Ad.

  13. I have seen no watering place like death, which kept faith with them,

    nor water-seekers like the throng of the vile woman's sons.

  14. It was their doom that reversed fortune ensnared them

    in their deaths; it asked nothing of us and accepted no ransom.

  15. God exalted Ali in battling them

    on our behalf, and schemed for him against the faction that schemed.

  16. He labored on while the fates lent him support,

    providing a harvest for the sword and heads ripe for reaping.

  17. No leisurely ease can be borrowed from his firm resolve,

    whether the wrathful man faces enemies covertly or openly.

  18. They meet him at the loftiest clouds; his wrath

    makes the clouds seem low in lightning and thunder.

  19. The sons of al-Husayn are time's treasures of generosity;

    time never inherits their last reserves through depletion.

  20. They are repeated through the ages in traits

    they patterned on their fathers and grandfathers.

  21. Peerless in nobility, with no equals; indeed,

    keen swords in their scabbards are also called single.

  22. If some people keep pace with drought through their stinginess,

    they come, generous, with the spring rain.

  23. Encamped beside Iraq's flowing waters, their endeavors refuse

    anything but loftiness and ascent to the heights.

  24. Did they choose the land before other people, or settle

    that land beside the villages as pioneers?

  25. At dusk it lies open and level for them; they enjoy its breadth,

    and at dawn they are its anchoring stakes through their might.

  26. They live at ease beside the flowing Nahrawan; when

    the clouds withhold, it gives freely of its running flood.

  27. They won its broadest abode, with courtyards

    spacious, and its most ancient dominion in origin.

  28. Nor do we neglect praise that we reserve

    for their Abu Muhammad, in gratitude and commendation.

  29. One of their finest in generous character, and most firmly grounded

    in merit, with the strongest lineage in nobility.

  30. Hasan's purpose, directed toward Hasan, pleases you;

    he remains devoted, aiming steadfastly at his highest rank.

  31. Your Dayr Aqul, for all its distance, cannot prevent us

    from coming to you from Baghdad as returning visitors.

  32. We renew our bond with the most generous of benefactors,

    and the steadiest of men in a crisis, even when it weighs heavily.

  33. It is my duty to make your nobility reach the farthest people,

    since those who gained eminence did so through even its least share.

  34. Do not judge al-Fayyad by his smallness

    in age; look instead at the glory he has built.

  35. Indeed, among the stars, the stars of night, the smallest

    to the eye are those that climb farthest into the sky.

  36. We have gifts of favor from his generosity,

    multiplying in number beyond time's vicissitudes.

  37. Like the sea's surge: if you come upon its brimming waters,

    they quench your thirst; if you return to it, it gives again.

  38. How many a noble deed has risen high from sons,

    plainly witnessed, leaving the fathers envious.

  39. You bring good fortune in the needs we seek to meet,

    and you are not grudging men of scant benefit.

  40. Three men who hasten slow success when

    they support one another in it, as helpers and sustainers.

Sol 6.1