حلي سعاد غروض العيس أو سيري — Albohtry

Loosen the pale camels' girths, Su'ad, or journey on;

and seek your fortune in the highlands, or descend to the lowlands.

All that we hope for and aspire to

is bound within fate's inexorable decrees.

So my efforts to draw near do not bring their far-off outcomes closer,

nor does my delay push away what they have brought near.

Why, then, do I burden myself as I do

with my ceaseless travels before dawn and in the midday heat?

The dogs go forth, with no merit counted theirs

except what the shortcomings of swine make plain.

Whenever you examine the hidden sides of affairs, you find

an advantage that puts the one-eyed above the blind.

I have said to the vultures, whose livelihood is despised:

'The bounty is paltry; alight if you wish, or fly.'

I have readied Abu Nasr's friendship and his support

against Time's weaponry—fang and claw.

Each day, through his generosity, I return

to kindness renewed and repeated.

A refined man, whose largesse floods entire peoples;

and all rejoice, those overflowing with bounty and those flooded by it.

The kings of Sogd share a claim to his lineage, inheriting

from Shimr Yar'ash a glory greatly celebrated.

From every fierce lord whose noble lineage showed him

where prudence lies in judgment and planning.

He is linked through generations to their ancient eminence,

like Jupiter, whose light was not newly kindled.

O Hamd, nothing was found in Hamd ibn Muntasir

but excellence and goodness such as yours.

Why, then, do some people say that his rank

cannot be reached, and his bounty is not hard to obtain?

Yet you have broken through generosity's limits, wherever

the finest of your bright, early-rising clouds have turned.

Your share in high glory is not diminished,

nor is anyone hoping for your bounty deceived.

Indeed, bounty, however great you make its amount,

is little beside my striking invention and my sending verse abroad.

And these are the rhymes: when they travel, into insignificance falls

the worth of dirhams and dinars beside them.

No benefactor who fails to enshrine thanks for his gifts in verse

is truly thanked, though a praiser extols them.

Rather, they are lightning: if they cross the protected grounds, they flash over

dwellings deserted at al-Hinw, or houses.

The days have carried off their freshness, wearing them down

with swirling layers of rainclouds, or windblown dust.

And they may once have been a dwelling, when love was fresh,

for gentle gazelles of humankind, or herds of deer.

When they appear to the onlookers' gaze, speak

of pearls strewn along the flanks of the sand.

Pearls that shells bring forth are no lovelier than

pearls that spend the night protected in secluded chambers.

And sorrow's urgings never cease to carry me

to a burning thirst, aflame with grief,

by a blush suffused through fair women's cheeks,

and by languor in the lids of eyes with dark irises and brilliant whites.