ما لذا الظبي لاينال إقتناصه — Albohtry

Why can this gazelle not be caught,

though he is near, plainly within reach?

Souls have come to single him out; and whoever is beloved—

singling him out becomes sweet to souls.

Slender—he never repeats a smile without

the house shining, or its openings filling with light.

People talked at length about our love and spoke

words whose retelling pleases the talebearers.

From a tale they fabricated; and it may

be its fabrication that casts doubt upon the tale.

How dear the visitor, coming at evening to eyes

that his forms have filled with loveliness!

His boughs bewitched me as they swayed,

while his heavy sand dunes stood firm.

A pearl endowed with preciousness, until

you, its diver, were granted more than its assessed worth.

Who will carry my words to the shah? And the shah

is lofty in deeds, a nobleman to the core.

Many a band of travelers came to you hungry for provisions

of rich gifts; the hungry among them were sated with bounty.

And many a charge you joined: there your rival

was struck dead before dawn.

The enemy seeks a way of escape there,

to shield himself with it—but how could he escape?

A character that shines like refined gold,

beautiful in its pure metal and its purity.

Constant in his pledge amid a people's fickleness,

his sincerity stands apart from their hypocrisy.

A lord who goes forth at dawn; the torrent of morning rain

is his lavish bounty's overflow and counterpart.

His pools lie close at hand when the water-drawer has

only damp earth, and only its moisture to suck.

He climbs upon his enemies' sharp points

the steps of glory, its hardest part made yielding.

Ranks of cloud, made unequal

in height by its rising and falling.

Its low clouds draw near, while far off

its towering clouds rise high above the eyes.

A breadth in arms beyond the capacity

of ample-linked mail, its supple and polished coats.

The reach of a spear, from which moves unhurriedly

its supple shaft, quivering in battle.

Ranging among the clans of Gharsh and Ghawr,

to a quarter whose ancestral stocks have flourished.

In quarters where your eye seeks out

the dwellings of kingship, its courtyards open wide.

A nobility that gives the envious man cramps; and among the least

requitals for an envier is giving him cramps.

O Abu Ghanim, may you live on to raise the price

of praise whose low cost repays the noble.

How often we have found you meeting a caravan's hopes—

an eager one whose young she-camels sped toward you.

A need has driven me to you; and sometimes

a man in need is called to you by a chance he seizes.

And by my life, if you help, I have indeed been driven

to seek help by Yunis and his purse.

It is a need: if you rule on it with a command,

the one commanded will submit, and his resistance will lessen.

And easy is the pursuit of justice for one whose

weakness is not hard to find, nor is his destitution.