سهر أصابك بعد طول نعاس — Albohtry

Sleeplessness has struck you after long drowsiness,

Because of the aversion of a lithe, alluring, swaying beloved.

Slender-waisted, like a branch upon a sand dune,

From a ban tree or from shoots of myrtle.

Like the full moon, light gleams upon his face;

No smoky blackness has blemished his cheek.

He shoots, never merely grazing, and kills whomever he shoots,

With arrows—not at a target or a practice mark.

How many a night I have spent awake with his conversation,

And delicious sipping when tasting the cup.

No eye closed for want of his phantom,

While the heart held the turmoil of obsessive thoughts.

All the beloved's coquetry is adored,

Except the coquetry of his aversion and despair.

If it was earnest on his part, my lifeblood flowed;

Or if it was jest, there was no harm in it.

He will surely remember, when alone, my companionship with him,

And his emptiness without me and my comforting company.

Affections will bring him gently back to me—

How often they have clung, for our sake, to a hard heart!

I have indeed drunk away my acquired and inherited wealth,

And bought the wine untouched, without bargaining.

I have indeed caroused with the best drinking companions, all of them

At ease through the fine manners of their fellow guests.

Their wealth is freely offered to their guests;

The generous man is indulgent and shares what he has.

I have indeed known caliphs and patricians,

Who felt at ease with my discretion in intimate company.

I have indeed endured a corrupt friend—

What a coward, what a bringer of misery!

If you lead him, his balkiness defies you;

Or if you are gentle, he bites down on the iron bit.

A loving man does not praise his friend

As a taster or sipper praises clear, sweet water,

Until he sees him swallowing his anger,

And giving to him in prosperity and bankruptcy.

I indeed say to whoever levels his spear:

Take it face-to-face from the hands of Jassas.

When sorrows came as guests, I indeed fastened

My saddle to the saddle-tree of a mighty, massive camel.

A noble sire: if one mother disowned him once,

Another recognized him in people's dwellings.

Her teats poured abundant milk upon him,

Quenching the thirst-crazed with milking-pail and bowls.

I have indeed ridden the sea amid its waves,

And ridden the terror of night in Bayyas.

I have crossed the lengths of the lands and their breadth,

Between Sindan and Sijas.

I have indeed seen, and heard of those who passed before,

And behold, Zurayq is the master of rulers.

So boast of him, and of Musab and his ally;

Husayn is indeed greater than Nashnash.

Were it not for Husayn, Musab, and his clan,

No sovereignty would have arisen among the sons of al-Abbas.

And of Dhu al-Yaminayn, who has no peer

In subtle plotting, hinting from fifths toward sixths.

He sought Ali when he came amid a mighty army,

Enraged men of fierceness and experience.

He began with their grandfather and crushed his spear-point;

They trampled Abu Yahya with the fiercest trampling.

He descended, seeking Babylon and its king,

And surrounded the deposed, heedless king.

He humored him a while, hoping he might desist;

But he refused and turned to the hulking, hardhearted man.

His brother's forbearance had indeed been vast,

Encompassing kings and all peoples.

But he listened to Harthama, who

Left him among filthy sailors.

Then Tahir's boats came and seized

The caliph of eunuchs and manlike creatures.

Neither Kawthar availed him, nor his followers

From Baydun's clan, nor Firnas.

Then al-Amin threw himself into the Tigris,

Hoping for escape, but ended in the dungeon.

Who could have known that his final fate

Would be to remain a captive in the guards' hands?

Indeed, how could he escape when his pursuer was Tahir,

At the posts of watchers and guards?

Someone hurried to him, bringing good news of Muhammad,

In haste; he told him, 'Heal me with the head.'

There is no glory above this for a man to wield;

The rival in glory fled from the guards' knives.

Zurayq never loosened his girdle after tying it,

Until the horses' charge had come to rest.

These are noble deeds—not a bridegroom whose concern is

Music and revelry, being fed or clothed.

Your father crushed all Nasr's hosts,

And Ibn al-Sari's, and Qiryas's two armies.

He conquered the lands, their small and their great,

From al-Tuwan to the abode of al-Mas.

He took the eastern and western lands by force;

Prayers are offered for him from pulpits and seats.

When their western regions had submitted safely to him,

And were cleared of the wicked and the people,

He visited Iraq, but did not make it his dwelling,

And came to the Shurat, who held fast to Hidas.

He stood as doom for the wrongdoer and a garden

For the righteous, like a garden of fennel.

Had only one man stood among the people,

None would have upheld justice like your father.

Were the conquest of al-Mazyar and its like counted,

The tally would exhaust the ink-soaked cotton pads.

Your brother rested, with gathered within him

The generosity of the generous and the might of the mighty.

Tahir is but his father and his grandfather;

All three surpassed these people.

You have indeed caught up, and have not fallen short of them;

Indeed, you have grasped the gap between the molars.

You have indeed entangled armies with armies

At al-Ghawr, with masters of evil whispering among them.

They hurled, wheeled with spears, and fenced

With their swords after long thrusting.

Those whose weapons had fallen grappled,

And life perished at every struggle.

The horses massed with their riders, while the spears

Jerked like the hauling of a well-bucket with ropes.

Death saws with swords, as though they were

Lightning flashing upon the backs of shields.

You see Death with its fangs bared,

A bereaved mother, yet with young, laboring in childbirth.

You slew their army and returned with their spoil,

And left them at al-Ghawr like heaps.

Whenever peoples under your care stir,

Entangled in the turmoil of the retreating devil's whispers,

You openly make an example of their chiefs,

To still the agitator's fury.

The wise indeed say to their envoy:

Spur the mounts with a bright, well-tested goad.

When you meet Muhammad, prostrate yourself before him;

There is no wonder in praying to Abu al-Abbas.

A king around whose stirrups you see other kings

Walking with their breaths held back.

He settles affairs, and not a murmur is heard,

With a grim man's bearing in his lofty station.

Like Time are the turns of his reward and punishment

Among all mankind, for a wounder or a healer.

His house has indeed risen above the Farqad stars,

Though its foundations rest upon low ground.

He rose and attained glory, until there turned toward me

A clan other than his, their saddlecloths worn out.

He raced and secured every splendid stake,

And shot and struck the target's bull's-eye.

Had he reached the sun's horn, they would have adorned his house

With honor, a gift of lofty, firmly rooted heights.

The Abdaliyyun, weak with modesty,

Are like lions swaying in their lairs.

With the wisdom of Ad in the assembly when they sit knee-bound,

And jinn ablaze in the sleep of battle-fury.

In war their clothing is iron doubled,

And in peace their clothing is beautiful attire.

Their faces are more beautiful than the stars;

They dazzled through the noblest origin and stock.

I served you indeed at al-Rusafa for a time,

And served your elder in the villages of Bityas.

I have a claim to respect dating back forty—counted

As years—and I have not forgotten the old bond.

I have indeed returned to you after a long interval,

And accepted the return of a lover seeking bounty.

Lower your wing to me and protect me, for I am

Like al-Samiri, forbidden to be touched.

Or may I not be left a castoff for every indignity,

Like Qabisa al-Ta'i or like Iyas.

May her unveiling delight you: take her as a maiden,

Above the bridal dais, the little sun of weddings.

I said, when I strung her ornaments—

Poetry awakens the discernment of the clever—

Had she appeared to the master poets, they would have boasted of her;

And to Jarwal, he would have gifted her to Banu Shammas.