أقيم على التشوق أم أسير — Albohtry

Shall I remain in longing, or depart?

And act justly in passion, or unjustly?

A reprover's persistence over passion wears itself out,

yet he neither desists nor falls short.

What Suʿda promised you was deception,

and the sweetest promise from Suʿda is deception.

Her love brought torment from the first,

and the latest of it has nearly tormented me.

She turns away, while within my ribs, from love of her,

and from the fires of her abandonment, burns a blaze.

Separation burns hot within my entrails,

blazing as the midday heat burns.

I dread that one of the beauties should see my

locks, with scattered gray hairs showing through them.

Plain folly it is in a gray-haired man

to become beguiled by an artless young gazelle.

The companionship of nights wears us down,

and evening departures and early starts exhaust us.

I saw [an unclear noun] compounded of various kinds;

the ether influences their increase.

As it passes away with the days, it is exhausted,

like the year that the months exhaust.

Indeed, the herald spoke of what we rejoiced

at—if only the herald spoke truth to us:

an army through which the outlying lands are overrun,

while fortified cities and frontier strongholds find protection.

In it the enemies' doom draws near, and there is offered

to them a scowling, bitterly harsh day.

As though upon the Euphrates and its two banks

the mountains of Tihama had risen and were marching.

Tabiʿ is brought up at their rear,

while Thabir leads at their front.

Whoever absence keeps far from them,

presence brings Rabiʿa of the Horse near.

One swift in resolve commands them; entrusted

to him, for him to execute, are affairs.

His secrets lie deep; no probing by the

investigator reaches what his mind conceals from him.

Stratagems that patient deliberation does not impair,

even if the prompter and adviser grow impatient.

Far-reaching: were Qasir to try to rival them,

Qasir would fall short of their reach.

Eyes behold him with a glance of affection

for his appearance, and hearts revere him.

Splendid and handsome in his sword-belts,

and imposing and striking in his ample mail.

When the mail is drawn over him, it goes forth,

its ample folds filled with generosity and goodness.

A commander at times, when justice attends

his rule; and at other times, a minister.

His bounty returns to us, draught after draught,

as a cup goes round, brimmed by the cupbearer.

Few are his like, and the rarest thing,

and hardest to find among men, is a peer.

He is fit to set disheveled cavalry clashing

with cavalry behind which dust rises.

He dispels battle's darkness with a face

that shines before the eyes and glows.

When the first signs of cheer flash across it,

you see lightning clothed in a massed cloud.

And no watering-place is nearer to quenching thirst

than rivers possessed by seas.

You own the Tigris's banks, stretching outward;

palaces face one another along their sides.

An edifice whose builder held nothing back,

nor was the builder's ambition slight.

Delegations come to it from the regions,

and a petitioner or seeker of refuge is satisfied.

So may blessings never cease to be perfected upon you,

and may joy never cease to endure for you.

Yours is the lofty eminence that awes

the people's hearts, and the mighty stature.

You thanked al-Nasir for those blessings

for some of which even abundant thanks are meager.

And no kindness have you repaid with another

like a blessing the grateful one spent the night repaying.

I kept your wealth intact for you, though it is a prized possession,

subject to loss, not accustomed to abundance.

So grant me instead a standing that pleases me,

and with one such as you lies ample recompense.

So you gave generously and carried me beyond my farthest wishes,

and renowned generosity is among your habits.

Will you, I wonder, leave me in a land not mine,

when sending me to my homeland is easy?

And your beneficence has encompassed every living soul,

so is there a favor by which a captive may be freed?

And you have freed necks from bondage; so order my release

to my homeland—you are worthy of that.