1. Neither youth's freshness nor its prime

    returns once its time has passed.

  2. The unburdened, carefree man revels; grief consumes

    the man whose breast is brimful of love's anguish.

  3. Does this love's secret kill me if I wrong

    it, or does its disclosure disgrace me?

  4. I fear separation from Alwa—rather, estrangement

    from her; a lover's heart is fearful.

  5. Lightning carries my mind wherever it wills,

    if lightning appears or its gleam appears.

  6. An evening breeze indeed brought you to mind,

    one that met a cloud-bank whose upper reaches shimmered.

  7. In it, al-Ghuwayr's tamarisks sighed, bringing grief

    to love-stricken hearts, while its ben trees swayed.

  8. My night in Humaniya—well may

    the memory of its dawn awaken longing in me.

  9. The wine took charge of me there, though reluctant,

    in the two hands of a slender man with bountiful fingers.

  10. All night he paired its color with the color of a cheek

    whose crimson resembled its crimson.

  11. I feared—or formed a surmise—

    that Abu al-Fath's time would be prolonged.

  12. When reflection proves sound one day,

    a man's surmise and firsthand sight are equal.

  13. If friends conceal themselves from you, they are revealed

    by time's severity and its gentleness.

  14. The sword is known by the target it meets,

    and a friend's testing reveals him.

  15. When time brings disquiet, among the enemies

    of one grieved by its treachery are his brothers.

  16. So disregard friends' rebuffs, since

    every piece of wood has its smoke lying ready.

  17. May God preserve the place where Abdallah dwells,

    or wherever his homelands lie.

  18. And a Madhhijite in ancestry and house, never held back

    by his Najran on a day of eminence.

  19. I was absent from him, and my joy vanished from me;

    his dwelling alone gathers joy together.

  20. A departure followed by deprivation of good fortune—

    many a distant man is driven away by his deprivation.

  21. Fortunate is the one who stays present; among the happiest

    people in a downpour are his neighbors.

  22. A visit ordained for Khosrow's Iwan,

    though neither Khosrow nor his Iwan had wished for it.

  23. The White Palace of al-Mada'in lures my longing—

    should not the Madhhijite, or his Ghumdan?

  24. Most worthy among men to grant favors, and most likely

    of all men never to hold his favors over others.

  25. Generosity's whereabouts would be hidden from us, and we would lose

    the place of kindness, were it not for his own place.

  26. If he makes a promise, they meet in fulfillment:

    his two hands and his tongue, in a single pact.

  27. A guarantor of whatever is sought from him,

    restless in thought until his guarantee comes true.

  28. A pliant nature: when trained to generosity,

    its flank bends, and its rein grows supple.

  29. Whenever the nights bring kindness,

    the first of their kindness is his.

  30. Heaps of gifts leave one wondering about the people—

    are they his bounty-seekers, or his treasurers?

  31. No fickleness in judgment is feared from him,

    nor is his versatility in it deemed slight.

  32. Al-Harith ibn Ka'b ibn Amr reaches

    through the tribe's glories as far as his edifice has risen.

  33. If you speak of its recent generations, he is the branch

    whose leafy crown towers among its ancestral roots.

  34. Or ask of its ancient past: the two chiefs

    of its two ancestral lines are his Yazid and his Qanan.

Sol 6.1