أيامنا بالرقمتين تولت — Alshaghouri

Our days at al-Raqmatayn have passed away,

So over me all manner of cares have taken command.

How many a night was mine at al-ʿUdhayb and Ḥājir!

They were brief—indeed, many were mine, yet few.

So it seemed a slipknot, toyed with

By morning's hand, which tugged—and it came undone.

And a guileless maiden—her heart's hardness softened,

So she pitied the flood of my streaming tears.

So it seemed, when she left her peers

In beauty, that a necklace's central pearl had slipped free.

The bān-tree's branches sank into dunes of fine sand,

When she swayed between two robes.

So I embraced her longingly—how many a first draught

Was mine from her sweet front teeth, and how many a second!

Then she smiled, revealing a fresh chrysanthemum

In a meadow on rugged ground, bedewed at night.

Then she continued in absence, which I imagined as

Pearls tumbling from necklaces undone.

She said, “You have tired of my love, and turned away from

The covenant of youth, while I am the one who never tired.”

I answered her, astonished: “You are the one

Who struck the lover with her malady and slipped away.”

Fair-skinned, her face puts the midmorning sun to shame

In beauty, when it shines forth in the sky.

My anguish for her grew subtle and immense, just as

Her lovely qualities grew subtle and sublime.

So I exchanged the nights' brevity for their length,

And after affection, my beloved grew estranged.

And youth's black steeds were assailed in a raid

By the gray steeds of age in my locks—and fled.

So the water of my youth was spilled, and I deemed gray—

—hair in a man the ugliest fault in graceful women's eyes.