أرى بين ملتف الأراك منازلا — Albohtry

I see dwellings among the tangled arak trees,

still standing—if only their oryxes stood there too.

So stop among them in sympathy, if you excuse me,

and travel far from them if you reproach me.

We met the dwellings at al-Liwa, as though

we met the companionable beauties without their ornaments.

Eyes are the death of lovers; I had never

thought the faded traces could be killers.

Scorching noons of longing—if separation's hand wished,

it would grant us those we love, and those noons would become late afternoons.

And a path of love from which I found no escape,

and consuming anguish from which I found no distraction.

I lost my good sense and turned to youthful passion,

in folly, though I had passed many stages beyond youth.

God bless the days of youth and the fine things

they did for us—if only they had not been so few!

O our longest night at Timmin, have we

a way to the short night at Babylon?

Peace upon the young men in the East! I

have headed westward, venturing deep.

With the lion and the lion's son, I raid in the morning

the defenders of the outlying lands, then fight at evening.

We visit Theodora and her son without longing,

though Theophilus son of Michael has turned away from her.

Like Dhu al-Qarnayn's companions when they settled

in those dwellings beyond the sun's setting.

Whoever ranges with Ibn Yusuf's raiding parties

will deem the truth of nearness to loved ones falsehood.

He spends the night beyond al-Nataluq, while his judgment

severs joints beyond Sisajan.

When doubt grows dark within it, it becomes stars,

and when peril moves within it, it becomes snares.

He struck the Byzantines with warfare whose

successive piercing blows always hit the vital spots.

He raided and annihilated them, not confining his attacks on them

to that year, but renewing the campaign the next.

Good fortune to you! Grant them respite, so you may seek the hills

in bloom, or milk a full udder.

For with your raids you have descended into their hollows,

as later rain and autumn's first rain, as drizzle and downpour.

You drove off those of them atop the strongholds,

and nothing remained but to drive off the strongholds themselves,

with a host in which you see daylight as a single tribe,

when it travels through it, and darkness as many tribes.

Their leader makes the sword bleed when mounted,

amid battle, and is firm in judgment on foot.

Their vanguard when he sends the army out to raid,

and their rearguard when he sends the army home.

The young men have praised none like Muhammad,

the hump and withers of lofty deeds.

Far beyond the envious, high honors throng

upon him whenever he counts Sa'd and Na'il.

Kings who reckon spears as walking-staves

when they brandish them, and coats of mail as undershirts.

When he utters a promise or a threat, there hasten

noble deeds that turn the deferred into the immediate.

A giver—if petitioners appeal with their rightful claim

to his familiar dwelling, they return as intercessors.

He set his mill turning, and the desert's stones became

dust, though the dust had once been stones.

He buttoned shut the gaps between keen blades around the sons of

Zurara, so they chose chains over them.

He set right everything corrupt among them,

and straightened everything crooked among them.

He drove Musa up into the sky, but he found

there no escape from him, and came back down.

Nor could Bitlis protect its lord

from the lion driving squadrons toward it.

You surely reminded him with the spear of what he had forgotten,

and taught him with the sword what he had not known.

What saved him from the sword with its long baldrics was that

he met you in anger, then cast down his baldrics.

You hemmed him in by force; then, when you had mastered him,

you encompassed him with favor and bounty.

Had you not fought him, and had he seen the greatness of what

you bestow in bounty, he would have come to you begging.

You showed kindness to the two tribes, Bakr and Taghlib,

and their Namr, until we thought you Wa'il.

On Manuel's day, when he had touched true guidance

with his claws, or was about to seize it,

you warded from Islam what, had it struck it,

would have left it forever after a dwindling figure.

Even if they rank it after your other exploits, it

surely surpasses the earliest battle-days of men.

You rescued a thousand and eighty of them,

and emboldened them until you drove back the massed armies.

May those people be your ransom who, when duty befalls them,

flee looming glory, each relying on the others.

Where one of them was silent, you spoke,

and where one of them spoke, you acted.