1. What friendship, what long-established bond

    the gazelles of the thicket have severed with us!

  2. Shunning gray hair, though they once

    rested content with youth while it remained.

  3. And when youth departs, say what

    you will of an absent one slow to return.

  4. Hidden from us is the whereabouts of the one at al-Ghamim,

    and that gazelle has grown far beyond our reach.

  5. And one worn out by sleeplessness—if only he could

    exchange his night for a snakebitten man's night!

  6. Leave him to linger among the traces of dwellings;

    he may be freed of some of his concealed anguish.

  7. Leave him; do not console him with your tears:

    the flood of his own streaming tears suffices.

  8. It is folly from you two, and excessive meanness,

    to blame for love one who has done no wrong.

  9. She of the rose-flushed cheek and

    the sweet smile and slender waist—

  10. a tender maiden whose phantom never stays away,

    exacting heartache from me as a creditor exacts his due.

  11. If those who reproach me for her saw her,

    the healthy would suffer what the sick man suffers.

  12. I seek refuge in firm resolves

    that aid me against the nightly onset of cares.

  13. They play across the wastelands and wear away

    the marrow of branded, high-humped camels.

  14. Bounding after a rapid trot, whenever a new

    waste is entered, and striding before the brisk gait.

  15. Each, with trembling ear-roots, is found

    leaving the wild ass's pace and the ostrich's behind.

  16. Leaning like arrows, they carry riders

    worn out by weariness and dejection.

  17. They have no stopping place, however distant the

    journey, except with illustrious Ibrahim.

  18. Seeking a precious prize; the object sought is not noble

    until it lies with a noble man.

  19. They sought a pledge among Banu al-Mudabbir,

    one neither found wanting nor censured.

  20. The water of their sea was not bitterly salt;

    no, nor was their land's growth unwholesome.

  21. In the exalted station among the ranks of kingship

    it rose, and on the upright path

  22. of generosity, first and last, which excelled,

    and of new, enduring nobility.

  23. It is a noble distinction sprung from the sons of

    Sasan, in the finest lineage and stock.

  24. For the truly trueborn, and the noblest of the

    noble, if reckoned, and the purest of the pure.

  25. Whenever you alight at the dwelling of Abu

    Ishaq, you find his precincts easy to enter.

  26. Whenever you scan his cloud, you will not fault

    the downpour of its deep-voiced, thundering shower.

  27. Unrivaled in an ambition that has made him

    a peer of the [stars] in loftiness of aim.

  28. And virtues, were you to seek to add to them

    their like, you would not find them in the clouds.

  29. Follow them, for you have seen with your own eyes

    their twin effects on enemies and the destitute.

  30. The bright-faced, radiant man—his hands kindle fire

    when the dark-browed, gloomy man's fire-stick fails.

  31. Stern in guarding the revenues, he confronts

    any seeking to diminish them with a forbidding face.

  32. He chooses hardship in handling affairs,

    though beside him lies a place of ease.

  33. Restless at heart, his breast will not be still

    until he redresses the wrong of the wronged.

  34. Dignified beneath his calm, he does not lift

    his gaze at the clamor of disputants.

  35. May God grant us more of His gifts in

    you, and of His abundant bounty in your keeping.

  36. You never exercised the governorship without

    winning a great share of its praise.

  37. Your robe has always stayed white despite its faults,

    and your skin sound despite its sickness.

  38. This Basra has cried out for

    your defense of her and your allotted bounty.

  39. You stood within her as one savoring water

    in summer, and delighting in the gentle breeze.

  40. You repelled the mighty calamity from her; none can

    repel a mighty calamity's harm but a mighty man.

  41. Alighting among Banu al-Muhallab, while

    rebellion ravaged the herdsman's grazing herds,

  42. you were among them, and I had the richest fortune,

    one granted in this to Azd, not Tamim.

Sol 6.1