Sol 6.1

  1. May you live, Abu Ishaq, as long as life is good,

    And may time remain proud of your days.

  2. Each day a gift from your bounty is ours,

    And in our praise you have our enduring thanks.

  3. And you are dew by which we live where there is no dew,

    And rain whose bounty we hope for where there is no rain.

  4. Yet, after contentment, I am displeased,

    And seek amends for a course whose smooth ground is rugged.

  5. And a rebuff has distressed me, one I did not

    Deserve, nor do I know how to interpret it.

  6. Why, then, did I come, obeying longing, from so far away,

    To one who felt no longing, and why did Bishr turn me away?

  7. And why does he refuse me entry, when he has seen

    Me leave his doors with my hand empty?

  8. Others have attained their wishes with you,

    And the abundant outpouring of your kindness has reached them all.

  9. How, then, can one, I wonder, be forced unwillingly to thirst,

    When the sea has struck his feet with its waves?

  10. Deal gently with one wronged whose rancor has shown itself to you,

    For exclusion is an affront to a man of standing.

  11. And they have claimed that nothing compels a man

    Against his resolve but gifts and magic.

  12. So if one day you are, without fail, to give a gift,

    Then Mihrjan is the time, since Eid al-Fitr has passed us by.

  13. So if you give Michael, you will send a precious gift

    For which amends are completed and the offense forgiven.

  14. A guileless youth, whom eyes behold as though

    Dawn had shone for them in the wake of a dark night.

  15. And were he to appear on a night in the teens

    Of the month, no one would doubt that he was the full moon.

  16. If one day a turn should swing his shoulders,

    Or a sidelong glance dart from his gaze,

  17. You would see a heart's passion, slow to depart,

    And a soul's desire whose like cannot be resisted.

  18. And one like you has given one like him, not finding it

    Beyond his power, nor feeling his breast constrained by him or for him.

  19. Yet a span of his sweetness has already gone by,

    And age is among the greatest afflictions for one like him.

  20. Tomorrow the days will mar him, and he will not be

    The first whose flawless beauty time has changed.

  21. And he will be afflicted with the two sides of a pitch-dark beard,

    Woe to his cheeks from it, should fate bring it on!

  22. Relinquish him to us, for you will find

    For him a price that poetry will raise through praise of you.

  23. And do not seek pretexts concerning him, or climb

    To stratagems that offer an excuse to an excuse-maker.

  24. For a man may feign folly with the bulk of his wealth,

    While beneath his two cloaks is al-Mughira or Amr.

  25. And he acts recklessly by squandering, though he is experienced,

    So the people have no doubt that he is a novice.

  26. And whoever does not value selfless giving will have no

    Renowned deeds, nor a name spread far for his nobility.

  27. So if you say, 'A vow, or an oath made earlier,'

    Then what generous man has a vow binding his wealth?

  28. Do you count him a noble treasure? For the sole

    Aim of the noble among men is that the treasure be noble.

  29. And if you love him and hate to part from him,

    For there was Wafr before him, and Wafr departed.

  30. And more pleasing than him in its dwelling within the heart

    Is praise that poems keep alive, or gratitude.

  31. And what is his worth beside your generosity, if in the morning,

    In full, or in the evening, your overflowing bounty goes forth?

Sol 6.1