Sol 6.1

  1. In praising the Sahib, my resolve is firm.

    He is enough for me, and that is prudence itself.

  2. He abases an opponent and elevates whoever loves him,

    setting up whoever defies him to be cut off.

  3. He is found devoted only to noble deeds,

    doing good and pardoning wrongdoing.

  4. He is the one whose aspiration is so lofty

    that its arched sole is shod with the star's hide.

  5. He is the one to whom his enemies submit,

    on every plain and every rugged height.

  6. His pens bestow bounty, and with death

    they pelt his foes: they are meteors hurled as stones.

  7. The Sahib has become the most deserving of all people of

    praise in stirring prose and verse.

  8. And where is one who can reach the full extent of his praise

    and his description, among Arabs or non-Arabs?

  9. The sun's essence is hard to describe,

    as is musk's fragrance when smelled.

  10. ʿAbd al-Ilāh—whoever seeks refuge in his shade

    has never feared an adversary, even for a day.

  11. But I have an adversary whose beauty is wondrous,

    slender of flank, intent on wronging me.

  12. If he gazes or shoots the arrow of his glance,

    he never misses a gallant man's heart with that arrow.

  13. My patience is weak, like the languor of his gaze,

    and his waist is slender, like my body.

  14. He strives to breach my solace's defenses—would

    that his mouth would grant me a kiss.

  15. His figure is a branch, and his face a moon,

    at its fullest, framed by the halo of his cheek-down.

  16. The roses of his cheeks and the musk of his down—

    this betrays me, and that spreads the tale.

  17. On his cheek lies a speck of ambergris;

    I almost drink it in my imagination.

  18. If he heeded the Creator when wronging me, he would dispel

    my heart's heat with the coolness of his mouth's moisture.

  19. O son of noble, illustrious men, cool my liver

    with your sweet saliva and the vine's daughter.

  20. Long ago I was enamored of beautiful women,

    love-struck, seeing my loss through them as my gain.

  21. But since I saw the fair women turn away from

    gray hair appearing on a decrepit old man's head,

  22. I have fallen for one whose temper is unbridled in war against me,

    and whose figure inclines toward peace with me.

  23. Ah, my thirst to sip his mouth's moisture!

    For that quenches my thirst and makes me thirst.

  24. Even if he granted me union, I would gain nothing

    from him except embracing and kissing him.

  25. And I do not think that, in our Lord's sight,

    O jurists, counts as a grave sin.

  26. Sin is only our neglecting to pray for the

    Sahib, possessor of eminence and learning.

  27. The Sahib, the scholar, whose master

    is the namesake of the unlettered Prophet's companion.

  28. At Jayrūn's fountain he set flowing, over the

    marble, water that never ceases to spout.

  29. Its murmur chants praise and beseeches, for him,

    God Most High for abundant longevity.

  30. For him Bāb al-Barīd was fashioned in pure gold,

    sublimed from an alchemy of solid substance.

  31. The finest thing you encounter there is what the

    artisan inscribed of his titles and name.

  32. He is the one who, in his generosity and might,

    has overflowed like a vast, foaming sea.

  33. He enjoins right and forbids

    wrong with justice, piety, and forbearance.

  34. May the world forever be seen as his dwelling,

    and his lifetime be all time, far removed from ruin.

Sol 6.1