معاد من الأيام تعذيبنا بها — Albohtry

Our torment at the hands of the days is renewed,

and their bearing the beloved away after drawing near,

and the tear-flood with which they fill the eye-corners,

though love is not what sets its flood pouring.

Astray is the judgment of a soul that does not see that its passion

for those beautiful women is a portion of its torment.

And your share of Layla—and there is no share to be had with her—

is only a tender maiden's rebuff and avoidance.

What keeps my people from being joined with hers

is the ending of my youth and the beginning of hers.

Perhaps you may draw near to union after

you have strayed far from its means—and perhaps she may too.

She is the sun, save that a sun reveals itself

to its beholder, while she remains in her clothes.

Whenever you seek a further share of life, you scoop

with your two buckets from the honey of ordeals and their bitter sap.

The world prunes us with the least of its efforts,

and vipers' venom is but a drop of its saliva.

A deluded man rejoices in the flourishing of dwellings,

though their flourishing begins anew from their ruin.

I did not accept the world when it came;

how, then, could I accept it when it departs?

I say to one deceived about Time, who has strayed from

choosing and selecting the counsels of reason:

It will ruin or destroy you to slip away

to a far-off land whose long return journey will wear you out.

And are you, in a buried grave that takes a long stretch

of earth, anything but a handful of its dust?

You boast of Egypt, yet calamities find their way

to Egypt whenever they probe its precincts.

You are not there al-Walid ibn Mus‘ab,

in the days when taming its unruly ones occupied him,

nor like Sinan ibn al-Mushallal, when

he built its two pyramids from the stones of its lava-fields.

Kings—Ṣāʿid took up the inheritance of their pride,

and shared with them the honors that exalt their lineage.

He tended their glory, lest its grazing herd be lost;

preserving the heights of those gone before is like acquiring them.

Did the Makhladis' hands have a share

with morning rain-clouds in their clouds' promise of rain?

Gifts slide down from the heights of their palms,

as torrents slide down from the heights of their ravines.

When the ashen year yields nothing, they take turns with

the swords of hospitality, which sate its hungry ones.

They stretch the breaths of shade over them

with buildings whose domes soar high.

How many a distress they dispelled, and how much was swallowed

of darkness and its mist by their battle-scenes,

with a tightly massed host, shining beneath the dust,

a swoop from whose eagle seizes the enemies;

and heroes of battle: in its yellow banners

lie forms of death, and in the gleaming white of its spears.

Najran nurtures it in every strait of battle,

as Khaffan nurtured the lions of its thickets.

I see ingratitude and benefaction have portrayed for us

the flight of men whose necks still bear its bondage.

How many a hopeful man has bitten his hand in regret

at the reversal and overturning of his hopes!

If you are content with falsehoods, then take care

against their ensnaring your peerless men and beguiling them.

When God grants him an elevation of power,

they weep their grief, or are consoled for their affliction.

When Madhhij races toward the path of lordship,

then redouble your resolve in diligent striving and its steady practice.

We were given honorific names and made commanders; your hands' bounty comes amid

the succession of glorious days and their alternation.

The Dhu-titled rulers have always been among us; their belonging

to any clan but ours is their harshest estrangement.

We found al-Mu‘alla like the mu‘alla arrow in his winning

the lottery-arrows' spoils and securing their rich prizes;

and in his generosity, like the sea—yet if the sea aspired

to one hour of his generosity, it could not equal it.

A sworn companion of lofty deeds: they never slackened in seeking him

to cling to him, nor did he slacken in seeking them.

His foes hold back from him; many a saying

has been denied its would-be speaker for fear of its reply.

When those who strive hope to catch up with him,

he moves at leisure at the limit of sight, or beyond that limit.

Whenever the clan beholds him rising

over it, it dispels its darkness with its blazing star.

And if it rouses him to counter a calamity

of Time, it draws its sword from its sheath.

When his favors join company, they cover the hills,

and pearls' beauty increases when they are together.

Never has kindness been barred by the locked door of a hardship

of Time, without your being the one to open its door.

Abu Salih, may you always possess the good

of life, while your foes grieve over what afflicts them.