Sol 5.6

  1. Whenever I seek ardent longing, I find it;

    and if I seek sorrows, they are never hard to find.

  2. I count my years, rejoicing even in their bitterness,

    though a hundred deaths lie within my years and months.

  3. I desire life to stretch as long as its rope extends,

    yet none is consigned to sorrows like the long-lived.

  4. Never did I think a beloved would be mourned after Qaysar—

    yet every lover has a Qaysar like my own.

  5. Indeed, in Ibn Bistam and Zibraj there is consolation,

    and in Wafr—despite Time—and Ibn al-Mudabbir.

  6. Yet what has sorely afflicted me in Zibraj's case is that his appointed day

    hastened upon him, granting no respite and refusing to wait.

  7. A favored man is one of this world's delights; whoever loses

    such a favored man from the world and grieves for him is excused.

  8. I commended him to his master for the beauty of a voice

    fit to captivate listeners—and a face worth beholding:

  9. radiant, beguiling the eye, his cheek suffused with color;

    whenever you turned a glance toward him, it came away saffron-dyed.

  10. It was as though the radiant stars had delivered him, pure,

    to morning Venus—already risen—and to Jupiter.

  11. He gave voice to souls' desires whenever he traced his art

    to Ibn Surayj, or imitated Ibn Muhriz.

  12. What an excellent companion to wine, in the judgment of one

    endowed with reason, when wine overwhelmed him amid flute and lute—

  13. one who stole away the long night until he brought us

    before a red glow along the brow of dawn.

  14. Young and guileless: whenever the soul mingled with him, it rejoiced

    in him; whenever life was joined to him, it seemed too short.

  15. Whenever eyes beheld him, they spoke

    of every delight he held, disclosed or concealed.

  16. They say, “He had not grown old, that his loss should grieve so sorely”;

    yet love is a freely bestowed gift even to the youngest of the young.

  17. I reckon my thumb the strongest of my fingers,

    though it never bore my ring's burden as my little finger did.

  18. Did the fever of Manuna become a pathway to death,

    though death had been expected from the fever of Khaybar?

  19. Among Time's perversities is that an entire encampment is left alive,

    bare on every side between Kutha and Sarsar.

  20. If only al-Lawghabardi had died before him,

    and the man denied delay had instead remained among the living,

  21. then we would have swallowed the calamities that had wrought the deed

    and not pursued them with reproach, multiplying our complaints.

  22. They perfume with camphor one whose own fragrance

    was sweeter than camphor before he was shrouded.

  23. A form is wrapped in an embroidered mantle,

    like the adornment of that finely wrought, embroidered robe.

  24. My liver has hardened: it did not sicken at his parting,

    nor did my heart break apart at the remembrance of him.

  25. Abu al-Abbas, you must submit willingly to patience;

    and if you do not find it compliant, compel yourself to endure.

  26. Tears must inevitably be poured forth—for only

    after tears have streamed down may one hope they will cease.

  27. If you do not sprinkle your burning inward grief with a tear,

    it will boil on through persistence, or destroy you in its blaze.

Sol 5.6