ناهيك من حرق أبيت أقاسي — Albohtry

What burning anguish I endure all night,

and wounds of love with none to heal them!

Whenever you glance, you are a wild-ox calf on a dune;

and when you turn away, you are a gazelle in its covert.

Indeed, sorrow was mine after remembering,

while composure was yours after feigned forgetting.

My tears flow while your tears are frozen,

and my heart softens while your heart is hard.

Have I heard a woman reproach me—and did I obey her?

And I have seen a woman who hates me—is there any harm?

I never told the dream-visitor who greeted me not to return

to visit, nor did I hold back a cupbearer.

O lightning, shine upon the Quwayq, then the two outskirts

of Aleppo, then the top of the palace at Bityas,

upon the ground where roses grow, their hue safflower-dyed,

in every open tract, and the gathering-place of myrtle.

A land that, when I grow lonely and then come to it,

gathers round me, giving me abundant companionship.

Today gray hair has turned me toward wisdom,

and I have yielded to my reproachers after defiance.

And I have raised my gaze toward people of understanding,

and turned my head away from the wayward.

And I have resigned myself, for all the miser does and does again,

to despair—if resignation to despair were of any use.

Whatever I forget, I shall not forget the kindness

you bestowed in days long past.

Tell Abu al-Hasan, who donned generosity

for those groping for aid—and it was the finest garment:

And though I have prolonged my absence from you, still

my soul breathes many sighs toward you.

If you are clad in the brocade of praise, that praise

is clad, in assemblies, in the radiance of your bounty.

And you are like al-Abbas in nobility of character

and lofty ambition, among the sons of al-Abbas.

And degrees of excellence in character, if you assess them,

among people accord with degrees of excellence in lineage.

If any mortal were ever above a noble quality

that wins praise, you would be above generosity and valor.

By your father's father, he indeed reached a height

in noble deeds, where few men stand.

So when undistinguished men build structures on

level ground, you build upon heights and foundations.

And if Death overcame him, it was after

it had come upon lions in their thicket lairs.

I have told those who shoot at your glory with wishes,

and your vile, ignoble enviers:

Roam in the forecourts of the hillocks, and turn aside

from that lofty, firmly rooted mountain.

For there is an imposing man of the stock of Hashim,

with a spacious assembly hall and guests in abundance.

His gifts stream forth, leaving no need for

hauling up buckets let down on ropes.

He lets no foul talk loose when he sits clasping his knees

among them, nor is he harsh-tempered or hardhearted.

Where generous natures smile,

radiant, and where reproachful women are rebuffed.

Not from newly acquired wealth amassed by treachery

does he give earnestly and share with others.

He who gives you his inherited wealth is not

like him who gives you other people's wealth.