أقصر حميد لا عزاء لمغرم — Albohtry

Desist, Humayd: there is no solace for one captive to love,

nor any withholding tears, even if they are blood.

Must you every year remain appalled

by a single death announcement now, or by a pair?

Your noble kin have passed away, save a very few,

and perished as the earliest generations of Jurhum perished.

So you have become like a nest its fledglings have left,

high on the shattered branch of a tamarisk.

Your sons loved noble deeds, and so was scattered

their company in every devastating calamity.

Their deaths drew close around them, while far apart lay

their resting places, far from your fragrant soil.

Each has a lonely grave in some land,

one in Najd, his tomb far away, and another in Tihamah.

Graves at the edges of the frontier lands, as though

their places there were the places of stars.

On the lofty height of al-Badhdhayn lies Muhammad's grave,

far from those who weep at every mourning gathering.

Each evening the wind rends over him

the bosoms of clouds, maidens and widows alike.

And two graves in upper al-Nibaj were watered

by the flashes of al-Ghawth's swords with a rain of blood.

Are they the graves of Abu Nasr and Qahtabah,

there where they lie—or Yadhbul and Yaramram?

In radiant Mosul is Ahmad's grave,

and among the hills of al-Qatul lies Asram's resting place.

How many rushing tears have sought them out,

streaming whenever reproach tries to restrain them.

Women lamenting in farthest Khurasan answered

mourners in Baghdad, hoarse in their chanting.

Over them the women utter a yearning cry after each groan,

and feel anguish like the surges of a fiercely kindled fire.

Abu Ghanim, your sons were slain by their conviction

that death in war is the noblest prize.

They went forth savoring death, out of zealous honor,

and to preserve that long-established lordship.

They thrust only with a mended spear,

and struck only with a notched sword.

And when they saw some forms of life were a humiliation

to them, and death's honor was not forbidden,

they refused to taste life while blame lay

upon it, and died a death that was not condemned.

To each of them his destined death came

as a commander directing a mighty army.

Each among them dealt death with a keen sword's spring,

a serpent's spit, and a lion's charge.

Deaths struck down by deaths, and arrows

of death against which death charged with arrows.

I wonder: did the bright swords fail to know them when they faced

their faces in the menacing press of battle,

and fail to remember being slaked by their hands,

when they brought them to drink beneath dark, thick dust?

Indeed they knew; but the sword is the most treacherous companion,

and the most ungrateful of those blessed by a benefactor.

I would ransom with my soul those to whom the foes' assault

was no harder than the halting of generosity.

Had Nabhan been fair, it would have sought for them

nothing but glory: glory is a costly undertaking.

Death called Nabhan, death after death, and they followed in succession,

like strung pearls when their thread is severed.

Peace upon those natures, for they

are free of every disgrace and sin.

Great deeds whose freshness never wears away,

though the remnants of their bones have crumbled.

It is no wonder if the lions are overcome

by the enemies' dogs, clear-speaking and foreign-tongued alike.

For Wahshi's spear gave Hamzah death to drink,

and Ali's death lay in the blade of Ibn Muljam.

Abu Muslim, may you ever be between one taking leave

among the rainclouds, its rain poured forth, and one offering greetings:

tears of a distraught weeper among the children of rain,

lent to you—or of one laughing and smiling.

If you did not die as the swords' prey, nor were

your mourners raised by the points of straightened spears,

then surely you died from galloping through death's mirage, battle-marked,

toward every champion bearing death's mark,

and from bearing the armor's weight while its iron grew hot

despite the frailty of a body battered by iron.

And no grave that holds your smile for generosity,

when the graves of others darken, is dark itself.