Sol 5.6

  1. Too little for you is praise that takes its pride in you,

    even if its prose were fashioned from the ordered stars.

  2. So pardon me—for among all who praise you,

    no youth devoted to you but discerning your worth has bound him fast.

  3. You are he whose fragrance has made musk needless;

    praise of you, spread abroad, revives dead generosity.

  4. O sea of bounty whose flood covered the earth,

    yet whose ebb stopped just short of my land;

  5. O downpour—not even your light drizzle fell to my garden,

    though your rain encompassed every region of the earth.

  6. Then graciously grant the honor to which you have accustomed me;

    your face is famed for its bounty and cheerful welcome.

  7. For one like me, a fortune is not acquired for itself,

    but for the settled ease it brings him once honor is secured.

  8. I have a long record of affection and service;

    in them, the servant’s private and public devotion alike will please you.

  9. Your ʿUmāra is the mainstay of your House, which

    through him has gained a long reach in praise and a long life.

  10. My choosing you over kings has made it so:

    to your bounty both my wealth and my poverty are ascribed.

  11. And you are he beside whom no reproach can touch me

    when my name passes through verse together with yours.

  12. I have for you praise with which you will be pleased,

    for praise’s kernel is not equal to its husk;

  13. and a necklace of royal verse, whose pearls are chosen

    from hidden pearls, each bearing your name.

  14. Time is nothing but what you cause it to be;

    otherwise, what are its pitch-black night and its dawn?

  15. So charge its two turns to deal kindly with us, for

    to you have devolved Time’s power to forbid and command.

  16. If Time does what is good, you are the one who guided it

    toward goodness; and if it sins, you are its excuse.

Sol 5.6