Sol 6.1

  1. I was sorely in need of union with Su'da,

    if only it were within reach of the hopeful seeker.

  2. She hedges her promise—neither fulfillment nor breach—

    well-knit in form, between slenderness and compact fullness.

  3. A sun that shone before the sun when she appeared,

    she travels among their women and camel-litters.

  4. One of those who wear ruby beads as sashes,

    and have not been cheapened by wearing tortoiseshell and ivory.

  5. May your abodes be watered—though watering is too little for them—

    by the abundance of every lingering, torrent-pouring raincloud.

  6. It lays upon the earth ornaments and robes

    that delight the eye with beauty and joy.

  7. So it fashioned what it fashioned from gold and silver,

    and wove what it wove from figured cloth and brocade.

  8. To Ali of Banu al-Fayyad I was brought

    by my night journey from where none travel by night, and my early-night departure.

  9. To a young man who follows each favor with others like it,

    like the sea, which follows waves with waves.

  10. Through his judgment, in every difficulty we return

    to a blazing lamp that shows us the unseen.

  11. I never saw a day like the day when there was pitted against Is-

    haq ibn Ayyub, Ishaq ibn Kundaj.

  12. No day swept away helmeted heads and necks more

    than it, or severed more veins and jugulars.

  13. When their field grew cramped with the two advancing armies,

    men either struck with the sword's edge or suffered wounds.

  14. His soul told him, unstinting in its counsel,

    while the horses mingled dust with clouds of dust:

  15. Whoever stays is slain, with no return

    to life; whoever flees is the survivor.

  16. So he sped off, rushing as the wind rushes, aided

    by a broad open desert and a dark, pitch-black night.

  17. If the long spears did not reach him as he withdrew,

    they had surely seared his haunches as though roasting them through.

  18. The caliphate's battalions are not to be met

    as you met them, with a lute-player and a cymbal-player.

  19. You left Kunayz's lute in the dust, and did not

    linger over its ramal rhythm and hazaj melodies.

  20. Its strings cry out while the horses batter it,

    trampling its two sides, troop after troop.

  21. If you return to war, then spare

    Yanshu's worn-out instrument and its resonant bass string.

  22. When the plectrum plucks it, it stirs within

    the hearts' depths a wildly surging joy.

  23. Nasibun was a lion's lair none could assail; now

    it has yielded to a lion who plunges upon his foes.

  24. He spared them; but for the rescue his clemency granted,

    their women would have spent the summer without husbands.

  25. And at the battle of al-Lahf, while the fighting kindled

    war's fiercely blazing fire against the champions,

  26. fifty thousand were dislodged and turned back in bands,

    as spear-thrusts harried them beyond all measure,

  27. by the bold advance of a fair man whose line of descent rises

    with him to the crowned king of al-Bayda'.

  28. Doubts, when their hidden depths grow black, are cleared away

    to reveal a star that dispels the blackness of doubt.

  29. If I liken him to rain in my praise,

    I diminish him, becoming a praiser who disparages.

Sol 6.1