الآن لان لي الزمان فأعتبا — Alshaghouri

Now time has softened for me and made amends;

And yielded after its restiveness, becoming tractable.

It forsook its balking and became an obedient old camel;

It rejected arrogance, and I mounted the unruly beast.

For me, the trunk is its tender palm-heart, and bone is

Soft cartilage, though once it was the hardest.

The beloved's phantom visited, though it was no time for a visit.

Welcome, beloved—be at ease, and welcome!

I found happiness with Su'da, and Nu'm bestowed favor;

And my eyes were gladdened by al-Rabab and Zaynab.

Oh, who will help an old man enamored of a noble lady,

Now gray-haired, whom he loved in the days of youth?

And is not keeping faith in this world part of

Faith? This is a saying of the Chosen One.

How could a woman with cool, pearly teeth care

Ever for the need of a gray-whiskered man?

A decrepit old man, his flesh furrowed and his hair turned white

At both temples, resembling a wolf that startled a herd of wild cattle.

When his skin grew dry and shriveled, and the water

Of his youth was spilled, his edge was no longer feared.

Ah, for youth's jet-black bird, perched,

When it was not startled by a gray-white hawk's landing.

Ever since an owl announced—for it has always

Dwelt in ruins—that my mind was laid waste.

Never did the noble Arabs grieve as they grieved

When they parted from youth's sweetest season.

A Yemeni lightning-flash gleamed for me with promise,

Though we had known it for a time as a rainless flash.

Its gleam laid the warp along the cloud's hem,

And, blazing, illuminated a gilded robe.

So it was as though Majd al-Din wa-l-Dunya drew

From it a keen sword to cut down drought.

And as though thunder's sound were the gallop of his horses,

With victory mounted on their brows.

The crescents in the sky envied their horseshoes

On earth, turning the distant into the nearest.

How often, at night, have his horses' hooves

And gleaming swords raised a sun, and spearheads a star!

If you resolve to travel, he has always been

Striking and pitching tents for noble deeds.

God is greatest! It is only right that time

Should praise you, and that you should be beloved.

And is not Majd al-Din wa-l-Dunya, in this age,

The highest of mankind in worth and the loftiest in rank,

And the most august to fasten a knee-wrap in his realm,

The mightiest for whom kings undo their knee-wraps?

His calligraphy closed to Ibn Hilal

Al-Bawwab every door he had once opened in calligraphy.

His benefactions gathered every exalted virtue

As his attributes, while the hands of Saba scattered.

And when he speaks, taking no pains over what

He utters, he shows us Ya'rub in eloquence.

Praise is devoted to him, a renown that never ceases

To travel east and west with noble deeds.

His right hand pours forth five seas,

And his knee-wrap is wound around Radwa with its hills.

Whenever he joins kings in an assembly,

They rank him as the central jewel among the gems.

That is only because they saw him, in his resolve,

Most steadfast in proud refusal, and noblest of them in paternal lineage.

The kings barred their delegations from bounty,

But he refused to let the seekers of his bounty be barred.

And he raised the building in Baalbek; whoever built

This edifice—his building shall never be ruined.

O Baalbek, you have surpassed the East

At its farthest, and the West, with the finest crowned ruler.

How splendid he is in all his states,

In a sharbush cap, in a crown, or in a head-wrap!

O neighbor of his, you have found in

Him an ocean for a neighbor, casting forth jewels in abundance.

Fear no harm from the flood of calamities when

You dwell beside him, though the flood has reached the high ground.

And have his enviers not recited—woe to them—

'About what?' So how often they ask one another about the tidings!

This is he who surpassed all kings

In excellence, baffling and exhausting those who describe him.

This is he for whom supreme honor was secured, so

God made nothing else his gain.

This is he to whom the haughty foes submitted,

For they never once found a way to escape him.

Ah, how lovely those fingers are when kissed,

In which the slender pen moves, turned this way and that.

If the piercing meteors had his shot,

No eavesdropper would find a way to escape.

Pardon me—may you be above reproach—for what I have said,

And pardon me, for I have come to you guilty of falling short.

Who can encompass the true nature of your lofty qualities?

Far beyond reach is that, and hard is that pursuit!

I have become afflicted with a fierce fever

In Baalbek, like a traveler far from home in Khaybar.

And I find the suffering there, in love of our lord,

Sweeter than freshly picked fruit, and more delicious.

And he is worthy of the superlative form in

Deep-rooted glory, as his title among kings.

May he ever enjoy conquest and victory as long as

A turtledove sings in the evenings and the east wind blows.