Sol 6.1

  1. How dear to me is Su'da's approaching phantom,

    And its night-visit at the strangest of times!

  2. How did you find your way to pilgrims who descended

    Toward Mecca's slopes from the hills of Arafat?

  3. You reminded us of our days in al-Sham and our life

    Among the black peaks and plateaus,

  4. When you were like one who refused and one who yielded,

    And fate, through you, both thwarted and favored me.

  5. But for the host of calamities and their chipping away

    At both my sides, you would be among my desires.

  6. Return to yourself; for my family has been worn away

    By death's injustice and calamities' relentless onslaught.

  7. Those dwellings give no joy to one who stands there

    Through the sight of figures or the clamor of voices.

  8. O sons of 'Ubayd, how fiercely for you has burned

    My liver, and my tears have overflowed for you!

  9. I find your noble deeds a choking sorrow after you are gone,

    And see your earlier glories as my heartaches.

  10. A nobility whose heirs lost one another and became

    Echoes of poverty, crumbling remains in the open.

  11. After there had been built upon the mountain of greatness

    Their ancestral honors, and they had raced to the utmost goals.

  12. They were the very core of Tayy's assembled host,

    In its affairs, and its scattered companies.

  13. The days will never bring me a replacement for them;

    Far beyond reach is any replacement for them—far beyond reach!

  14. A blazing fire whose sparks flared

    Upward into the sky, and a flood of the Euphrates.

  15. And he who taunts me over fate will learn tomorrow

    That a harvest follows every growing thing.

  16. My dear son, I have cast off my frivolity;

    It has fallen away, and I have sobered from my intoxications.

  17. Forty years looked upon me and called forth

    My gray hair, and shook my spear-shaft till it bent.

  18. And I see that most of my father's peers followed one another;

    They passed away, and time wheeled upon my own peers.

  19. And among my relatives are those who rejoice at my death,

    Foolishly, though the strength of their lives depends on mine.

  20. Whether I live on or perish, I have attained that which

    Has filled the breasts of my friends and my enemies.

  21. And I lived as the caliphs' boon companion, illustrious

    In renown, my raptures made sweet by them.

  22. And I interceded with them over one weighty matter

    After another, and they granted my requests.

  23. And through them I bestowed favors upon the Arabs,

    Giving aid to petitioners and freeing captives.

  24. So now, when I have reached the heights of greatness

    And climbed its loftiest degrees,

  25. He runs to enter the dust of my swift advance—

    One who, in a race, cannot reach a tenth of my unhurried pace.

  26. And one reviles me whose clan, if I caught it in my jaws

    On the day of boasting, would fly about in my gullet.

  27. My grandfather is he who raised the call to prayer at Manbij

    And established there the direction of prayer.

  28. And my father, Abu Hayyan, commander of Tayy,

    Against the Romans beneath his raised banner,

  29. And overseer of the capture of the bridge, when

    'Umar was urged to it, and the doer of those deeds.

  30. And my maternal kin: al-Hawfazan and Hatim,

    And the two Khalids, the benefactors, my protectors.

  31. And among the clans are men of ancient standing and a newcomer,

    New to eminence, unpracticed in noble endeavor,

  32. When the honor of marriage alliances was not bought

    With money amid hardship and famines.

Sol 6.1