أفي كل دار منك عين ترقرق — Albohtry

Does an eye of yours well with tears at every dwelling,

and a heart throb through long remembrance?

Yes, we wept together at the ravine for an hour,

and this side of it lies Layla's branching ravine,

at an old campsite that holds, for the dune's tawny gazelle,

the beauties of days loved and adored.

I stood, and made my anguish stand at love's station,

in nights when Time's bough was luxuriant and leafy.

Her dwelling stirred my sorrow, though it lay still,

and her traces renewed my longing, though worn away.

May God water the moist teats of Time

that gave us heartache to drink, when Abraq al-Hazn was still Abraq:

nights we stole from Time, after

the parting of the hair shone with gray hair's dawn.

I sought a cure for Layla in Layla; but none was cured

by upland water who spent the night choking on water.

The 'Idiyya pale camels know full well that I

trot when the sluggard sleeps, and stride swiftly.

I do not yield to remembrance when I remember her,

even if a gray dove calls and the night is dusky.

We set out on them, white, in the moonlit nights; we did not see the

moonless nights until the camels were more wasted than those nights.

They battered their faces, making for the Hashimite woman's son—

faces frowning at the wasteland, never breaking into smiles.

Indeed, they endured before Qasan a night whose

last stretches could scarcely be reached, so far apart were its bounds.

They intended a stay between Qum and Aba,

on a shimmering sea of Talha's line,

where gifts flash forth, unveiled,

to every petitioner, while promises are few and far between.

Thus I was like Hassan, and Muhammad was

like Harith of Ghassan, and Aba was Jilliq.

Dwellings where my voice is not lowered

as a stranger's, nor is my arrow there broken at the nock.

They perfumed the night around us, steeped in musk,

and greeted us with a dawn anointed with saffron perfume.

With an Ash'ari whom poetry knows

will draw his bow to prove it true, then draw it to the full.

I encountered his generosity in Iraq, and there flashed

in al-Jibal a rain cloud of his, gleaming.

A bounty like sunlight, encompassing all: the west

is equal in its radiance with the east.

If his virtues measured their reach against abundant rain,

the rain's narrow armspan would fail to match them.

He appeared kindly inclined when generosity's star was setting,

and its seeker, with threadbare means of appeal, was unsuccessful.

He spent in pursuit of glory until I thought him

receiving from Time itself, or spending from Time itself.

Smiling toward champions even as he terrifies them—

a sword, when it strikes, has both edge and sheen.

Modesty and death find their culmination in one man;

likewise, deep water quenches thirst and drowns.

And every state of his has a glory that illumines it;

he has a character into which no affectation has crept.

There is no giving but his giving while he smiles,

and no resolve but his resolve with head bowed.

Ali, son of Isa, son of Musa, son of Talha, son

of Sa'ib, son of Malik, when he is beheld:

handsome bearing and sound judgment when sitting-bands are undone

and the specters of calamity thunder and flash.

People are only a herd of horses: among them are

those bearing their forebears' old color, and the piebald.

When he marches among the two sons of Malik, the lances tremble

upon a mountain that overwhelms mountains, making them tremble.

Demons of battle, as though their army

had madness in it when the battalions encounter it.

They gave that banner victory, while already

its streamers fluttered above the forelocks.

Not one teller remained in the band of brigands

to tell of the people—how they gathered, then were scattered.

And on the day the Kurds saw his spearpoint's lightning

pour out their blood, in downpours and first showers,

they turned away: some heads were shamed for fleeing

for ages, and other heads were split by swords.

O Abu Ja'far, these deeds of yours are fresh and tender,

and here is my tongue, sharp-edged and unleashed.

I spoke and overwhelmed the enemies; nor was

their multitude able to silence me when it spoke,

with every poem of lofty rhymes, as though it were

a host when recited amid the people's host.

There is no true bounty but with one whose praise

reaches al-Sham despite the great separation, while he is in Iraq.

Men wished that my requests would be slighted,

grow turbid amid your bounty, then be muddied.

Your fidelity is a curtain lowered against that,

and your generosity a door shut against it.

You hasten to bestow favors, so fast it is as though

you were racing a peer in generosity who had almost taken the lead.

The heights have no other seeker, so take your time;

even if they were sought, none could catch up with one like you.