1. Do you suppose you hear from the loudly cooing doves

    a sorrow like your own newfound sorrow?

  2. By God, what composure on the day at Burqat Thahmad,

    which parting from the slender gazelle sends fluttering!

  3. Companionship gathered, then its company was scattered

    by a company of intimates not united.

  4. And I stood by the traces, but found no

    fault with the course of streaming tears.

  5. And I questioned them until I was drawn away, but they gave no ear

    there to the call of one standing and asking for a halt.

  6. Ruins where I plucked love from its branch,

    and trailed pleasure there as one trails a bordered cloak.

  7. So I shall surely make tears flow, if you do not make them flow,

    and surely know love's anguish, if you do not know it.

  8. And I am the one reproached amid longing and youth,

    and for them both, even if you are unreproached.

  9. She marveled at the white streaks of my nape; yet

    the true marvel would be if it were unstreaked.

  10. Why did you not weep when you had seen his weeping,

    and pine away when you heard the lovesick one's lament?

  11. I swore by the nobility to which witness was borne

    by Udad—Yusuf's inheritance from Yusuf;

  12. and by the terror of the lion's threat, for he

    shattered the enemy with his crashing thunder.

  13. An army shall surely attack the Romans at dawn, sheathing

    the dawn in its enveloping dust.

  14. The horizon blackens from it, if it is not blocked entirely,

    and the sun reels within it, if it is not eclipsed.

  15. Had Layla al-Akhyaliyya witnessed

    its outer ranks, she would not have extolled the house of Mutarrif.

  16. Horses like spears, and young men

    like swords when summoned to a height.

  17. Bright-faced, when the flames of sword-edges blaze about them,

    they wheel upon the wielders of bending spears.

  18. The lion they obey leads them, as though he were,

    when the united host assembles,

  19. Amr of the Spears among Madhhij, or Amir

    among Tayy, or Hajib among Khindif.

  20. Like a lion, except that this one attacks

    with a keen Indian-steel sword, and that one with an awl.

  21. Firm of resolve, inwardly unyielding amid

    the terrors of that unfolding cloud.

  22. Drawing strength from a reserve of his judgment,

    he carries affairs through, while its sea remains undrained.

  23. If he is not mature in years, he is

    mature in experience amid the battlefield's clamor.

  24. The marks of his judgment appear, as though they were

    the blazes of leading steeds from a commanding height.

  25. And when he draws upon an impulse from his mind,

    arising unbidden, the veil of the unseen is not drawn.

  26. And when the people's speech in a crisis rises high,

    he settles the issue in three letters.

  27. In every pass he has lodged his noble steeds overnight,

    swooping like grasshoppers in a bitter gale.

  28. They passed over al-Jawzat and swooped down upon

    open ground at al-Safsaf, a bare, level plain.

  29. From Tarsus they raided Kharshana at dawn, which

    lay beyond the reach of far-ranging hope at full gallop.

  30. And they left Mawa a refuge for owls,

    accompanied by the echo of raging winds.

  31. And upon Qudhadhiyya they descended with a banner

    that rose high with the two foremost wing-feathers of a stooping eagle.

  32. They outstripped the eunuch, who had plunged in, seeking

    revenge for the eunuch, galloping on ill-bred fortune.

  33. The terrors of battle stunned him; had he been

    an eye, such was his terror, he would not have blinked.

  34. O Yusuf son of Muhammad, no welcome gave the

    Romans to your charge with the keen-edged sword.

  35. They wished fervently that you had cut off their noses;

    severing heads is unlike severing noses.

  36. The mistress of their kingdom petitioned you for peace,

    if a boon could be sought from a willing giver.

  37. And I seem to see you already bringing her throne,

    and the sword is swifter in giving than Asif.

  38. You brought down upon the Gospel, then upon its people,

    a humiliation that showed them the might of the people of the Qur'an.

  39. You angered it with flashing blades, yet in truth

    you would have pleased it, were it not distorted.

  40. A conquest with which you outstripped conquests; it came at

    the birth of the reign of the tenth caliph.

  41. on the day it erased from Aswadan the blackness of what

    the Prophet did to Ka'b son of al-Ashraf.

  42. He will surely reward you for your effective service, which

    was the faith's security after fear.

  43. You confirmed allegiance to him and did not incline toward

    the fool's wrangling or the alarmmonger's talk.

  44. You were upheld by fortune that never unraveled,

    and aided by a band that never weakened.

  45. A generosity for which the tribes called you extravagant;

    one extravagant in noble deeds is not extravagant.

  46. Fortune like Abu Sa'id's fortune: it

    left al-Simak as though it had never risen high.

  47. You shared his qualities with him: they are death

    to the aggressor, and bounty to the petitioner.

  48. So when he runs from one goal, and you run from

    another, your two courses meet at the midpoint.

Sol 6.1