Sol 6.1

  1. O sons of war, of battle, and of mighty honor,

    and those made surer guides for people than the stars!

  2. You quenched with the water of Indian steel a burning thirst,

    stirred within the breast by the blaze of resolve.

  3. You mounted the lean white steeds, and they turned,

    through tightly woven mail, into the likeness of black steeds.

  4. And you set out on sleek, noble steeds, for they,

    when they raced across the deserts, were like speckled serpents.

  5. And you outshone their gleam with swords one fancied

    rays of light, their watered patterns resembling speckled serpents.

  6. Yemeni blades, whose edges the smith had thinned,

    yet in striking they are of the hard, unyielding kind.

  7. You showed forbearance toward the oath-breakers; after that,

    you grew angry—and some wrath is more fitting than forbearance.

  8. Then you marched as sandgrouse travel through their passes,

    and nothing betrayed you but the clatter of bridles.

  9. Noses lifted by conceit, until they were cut off,

    in humiliation—how many a nose is cut off in humiliation!

  10. With the magic of al-Khatt spears, you scattered their armies' ordered ranks,

    and I marvel that scattering should look so fine within ordered verse.

  11. And the edges of bright blades traced the outlines of their dwellings,

    and men like you know the boundary by its outline.

  12. They knew nothing of combat's evil, imagining

    the flesh of proud falcons to be just like other flesh.

  13. And they knew that the winds fall short,

    yet that is only ignorance in the guise of knowledge.

  14. By your life, dust rises of itself,

    but it cannot reach the stars.

  15. O Shabib, behold the horses at midmorning,

    climbing glory's heights with the noble horseman.

  16. And here is Umar the fearless, just among humankind,

    yet in his warfare he is unjust in judgment.

  17. He pardons faults, but his sword

    forgot, on plunging into war, how it had been in peace.

  18. His sharp sword had been thirsty for war,

    and in battle it became like a drenching autumn rain.

  19. Turner of war's mill, the pivot of its rotation,

    and a thunderbolt that kills outright in every quarter.

  20. Armies were seized by fear when he terrified them,

    with his mighty arm and his massive chest.

  21. They turned back on their heels, routed, as though they were

    devils that the stars pelt with stones.

  22. Their chief tucked evil beneath his arm and kept at it,

    until evil shot him with arrow after arrow.

  23. They had not known the taste of combat; only

    through him did they learn, then plunge deep into the desert with that knowledge.

  24. This is how men act—may your mothers mourn you!

    Come to the spears, to blows and charges.

  25. O mother of theirs, your proud sons have been clothed

    in shame that cannot be shed—cursed be you as a mother!

  26. As though the wilderness he crossed amid his troops

    were a sky, with a full moon among battalions of stars,

  27. and a sword descending from his palm upon his foe

    were a falling meteor God hurls at those He would strike.

  28. O sea, within whom swell

    overflowing tides of resolve in channels of forbearance!

  29. It drowned some peoples and saved others,

    and repaid them justly with al-Khatt spears and arrows.

  30. You gained mastery, yet you pardoned; such are

    the traits of just kings in pardon and judgment.

  31. A man's pardon is obligatory when his servant repents,

    but if he rebels, pardon is a kind of injustice.

  32. O lion, whose palm holds death and wealth,

    whose fingertips enrich and whose claws draw blood!

  33. How many a rival you have felled upon the earth,

    and how many a dead man sought that palm and recovered from sickness!

  34. Enjoy this victory, for you were its seal;

    for in it, conquest's beginning and its close were sweet.

  35. And stand, proudly arrayed in the robes of the vizierate,

    in the robe of eminence, high above every man of renown.

  36. And live amid congratulations every day and hour,

    by raising an ally, even if through victory over a foe.

  37. And repeat my poem time after time,

    to breathe in a rose newly opened from its sheath.

  38. For the verses of my poems are pleased with me,

    but my houses complain of me for my poverty.

  39. So take her, Abu al-Khattab, a virgin, a modest maiden,

    and through her enlarge my share and make my portion generous.

  40. And illuminate with light from you a lamp in darkness,

    as though I were blind in it—'aʿmā,' or, in another usage, 'aʿmī.'

  41. May you never cease to be victorious through a people whose battle cry is:

    'O sons of war, of battle, and of mighty honor!'

Sol 6.1