لو كان يعتب هاجر في واصل — Albohtry

If one who forsakes could be reproached for one who keeps faith,

or redress won for a lovesick man from a heedless one,

you would have felt remorse at the trickle pouring from my eye,

and recoiled from the ruin ravaging my heart.

If ever I turn to forgetting, I am

through love of you, faced with an all-consuming care.

And I have indeed cast off the bridle for you, and have not been

one who favors slanderers, nor one swayed by the reproacher.

And if indeed you stayed at Dhu al-Arak, it was after you had

ensnared the departing one's heart with grief.

What would it cost the days if they allowed us

to linger a few days beside you,

so that you might pity the tormented heart, afflicted

by love of you, and the frail, wasted body?

A hope has wavered between a year gone by—

that I might see you—and a year to come.

Woe to her! Were it not for distance, mine would again be

the tight embrace around the loosely hanging sash.

Long may al-Mu'tazz endure for us: indeed, through his rule

guidance has grown mighty, and falsehood's delusion has faded.

He has never ceased to guard our faith and protect it

with Mashrafi swords and slender spear-shafts.

Kindness bursts forth on the day of his giving

from the bounty of an open-handed, mighty lord.

Beaming and cheerful-faced: when he promises wealth

with a smile, he follows his smile with a gift.

Like a rain cloud: when the flashes of its lightning shine,

they reveal to us a steady rain or a downpour.

May our souls ransom you—though they are a scant ransom

for you—from the vicissitudes of every treacherous age.

When your deliberation and resolve reached perfection,

you applied your judgment to building al-Kamil.

And among the kings, you were favored with success,

gaining from it the most auspicious dwelling and abodes.

The doves took fright, though they had cooed above it,

at a terrifying lookout where a slip would be perilous.

Its roofs were raised into the winds' path,

and the wonders of its proud beauty shone.

And it was as though the glass walls within it

were deep waters surging against the sides of shores.

And it was as though the marble's striping, when

its fitted pieces met in a symmetrical display,

were woven cloud-bands laid out, some mottled,

some striped, some closely matched, some alike.

Its ceilings wore, from polished gold,

a light shining over the dense darkness.

So you see eyes roaming over a place of splendor,

ablaze above and elegant below.

So it is as though over its garden there were spread

a silk-striped cloth of unbroken Yemeni embroidery.

The Tigris, as its flood flowed on, freed it

from needing the flow of the clouds' steady, falling rain.

And the east wind breathed through it, so they swayed—

its trees, both barren and fruit-bearing—

like the walk of lissome maidens setting out one evening,

some with hands adorned, and some without ornaments.

And goodness and delight are gathered for a hall,

worthy in standing and filled with generosity.

You and the roses reached it together, at the same time,

and you settled there with the arriving spring.

And with a Nowruz blessed for you came

the turn of a year after a year gone by.

May you long enjoy it, and live in spacious ease

in your royal abode for a thousand full years.

And may you see Abd Allah at an age that

promises much in its long, unfolding span.

A moon on whom the retainers pin their hopes for that

by which the one they look to fulfills the hopeful one's due.

They hope for nobility from him, attested to

within him by trustworthy signs and proofs.

And paths of noble action, by the like of which

the lesser man recognizes the better man's lead.

A youth whom wisdom makes dignified, as though he

had drawn that dignity from hair turned wholly gray.

And I have indeed tested his qualities and found him

endowed with exalted traits that came from you.

And I asked him for myself just now, and found him

most moist with bounty in palm-lines and fingertips.

He mirrors you in the nobility of deeds, trait

for trait, and disposition for disposition.

You first showed me a care worthy of thanks,

which served as my grounds and means with him.

And I see your guarantee of fulfillment and his promise

will be content with nothing but swift success.