Sol 5.6

  1. Ask of the heights of Salʿ—for the eyes of its gazelles—

    unsheathe white Indian blades, their sheaths black.

  2. And beware, both of you, of approaching their lair:

    the lions of al-Sharā are no deadlier in their den.

  3. How often a herd of oryx appeared to me from among them,

    and I beheld my death lurking in their eyes.

  4. Never did I shoot at the gazelles of the dune on the day of Rāmah,

    seeking an encounter, but I was struck by separation from them.

  5. My two companions, unless you have grown used to sleeplessness and al-Suhā,

    do not behold their moons amid their swaying boughs.

  6. I knew nothing of passion before it led me astray,

    and the soul has no guide apart from its own certainty.

  7. My eye has indeed been kept from beholding the beauties of her herd

    by what marred it when tears streamed from its ducts.

  8. With my soul I ransom those cool, contented eyes,

    sleeping through the darkness, heedless of eyes heated by grief.

  9. Among them you might glimpse a graceful girl who, if she appeared

    in the wing of deepest night, would guide the lost by her brow.

  10. The cooing of doves at daybreak reminds me of her,

    and I yearn for her whenever they incline toward their nests.

  11. I weep for the nights that passed while she was near,

    for nothing aids the eye but its own wellspring of tears.

  12. The maladies born of sorrow for her love revisit me,

    and the deadliest sickness of the soul is the sickness of its sorrows.

  13. Perhaps swift, close-bred steeds, coursing onward,

    and the setting of resolve’s arrow upon their backs,

  14. and my crossing every wilderness as the night is cut away—

    where even the sandgrouse loses the path among its rugged rises—

  15. will show my luster when time puts me to the test,

    as sword-blades are tested by their smiths.

  16. I take both turns of fortune firmly, whether bitter or sweet,

    and endure death’s red terrors and its black.

  17. Thus she repays old debts she owes me,

    and nothing bends the oryx so often as the debt it owes.

  18. Her union is precious, like her star high in the sky,

    unattainable—and, in the ocean’s depths, like its great fish.

  19. For her my very being grew faint with wasting, yet my visitors

    found no clue to it except the faintness of its moan.

  20. I kept promising myself that my visitors would return,

    that my censurers lied and her false promise was true.

  21. But what path is there to consolation from loving her

    when the Merciful fashioned my clay together with hers?

  22. And what bare place has not been adorned

    by the learning of Abū Yaman—glory’s good omen and right hand?

  23. An imam who, when the seas of his knowledge surge,

    brings seekers of guidance safely to anchor in their ships.

  24. He dives in thought for the pearls of meaning

    and presents us from his speech with their treasures.

  25. From his judgments he sends forth maxims

    beside which even the master of the wine-cask seems foolish in judgment.

  26. Had he wished, through his acumen and insight,

    he could have spoken of things before their time.

  27. I swear, had he not dwelt among us, there would have arisen

    among humankind legal rulings bewitched by their own temptations.

  28. From the heights we visit the station where he is greeted,

    and fulfill our hopes before their deaths overtake them.

  29. In this world we lean upon the pillar of his being

    and witness hours of serenity at its Ḥajūn.

  30. He is of a people whose hills of forbearance never sway—

    could passion, through its baseness, shake their lofty peaks?

  31. Through them Batrūn has risen proudly in honor; indeed,

    we have ennobled it through its man of high station.

  32. Our al-Shahbāʾ has needed no builder,

    enriched through them, independent of its citadels and fortresses.

  33. A companion to righteous nights through his asceticism,

    for none but their companion can set things right;

  34. a comrade to proud, lofty glories through his nobility,

    while the pride of our heights lies in the pride of their comrade.

  35. To you I send her—a ringdove, sworn companion of a garden,

    singing among its branches in all her modes;

  36. or else a bride in an embroidered mantle,

    escorted by virgin meanings and their matronly counterparts.

  37. Souls have envied her, while hidden within them lay

    rancor—and grudges are the worst things concealed.

  38. They deem my poetry excessive, yet I

    am generous with splendid rhymes, never stingy with them.

  39. At times I have driven their chiefs before it,

    when the jussive strikes away its soft letters.

  40. They think that I have sunk into obscurity for lack of wealth;

    how many a household has suffered through its own ill suspicions.

  41. Shall I toil in this world and be denied the bounty of Him who

    guaranteed within the womb the sustenance of its fetus?

  42. I am Husayn, and my enemies are Umayya;

    no wonder, then, at Umayya’s betrayal of her Husayn.

  43. So endure, and remain safe from these nights,

    aloof alike from their Maʾmūn and their Amīn.

  44. For you are to the days a cool, contented eye,

    and the days see only through their own eye.

Sol 5.6