أدارهم بين الأجارع فالسدر — Ibn Alkhatib

Their homes lie between al-Ajariʿ and the lote trees.

May the morning clouds shower you with every pouring rain.

Answer me: may death's hand keep away from your hills,

and may the waters of your abundant spring never dry up.

May the shade of the moringa remain luxuriant in you,

swaying in green robes of leaves.

When did the whole tribe depart and become

like pilgrims dispersing on the night of departure?

And where did they set out for? Did they camp on the heights of Tihama,

or settle on the summit of al-Hijr?

And when they urged their mounts toward Iraq, did they travel

along the bank of Dujayl, or cross by the bridge?

Or did they head for Syria, or, over the sands of ʿAlij,

urge their mounts across the Nile, bound for Egypt?

She said: They traveled while night let down its curtains,

and the dark hours were still in the prime of their life.

They bound firm resolve upon their saddles,

and suddenly their mounts startled me as they moved through the night.

This is my account; I have poured out its sorrows

to you, but what happened afterward I do not know.

Were it not for a breeze whose sweet report pointed

to me, and scents that spread for the travelers,

they would not have known my place, nor would there have appeared

the standing traces of deserted dwellings above my dun sandhills.

I swear by the Lord of the mounts that hasten to Mina,

and by the sanctity of what lies between the Station and the Hijr:

if I had given longing my reins

and let the assassin of yearning reach my breast,

I could not have swallowed a drop from life's spring;

and if I swallowed it after that, what excuse would I have?

But a spirit that insists on patience refused otherwise,

a spirit that has won the foremost prizes in life's struggle.

I exchanged the loneliness of separation for the comfort of patience

and entrusted the direction of my affairs to God.

Should I fear poverty when I have come to the spring of wealth,

or fear when I have become a neighbor of the Banu Nasr?

I brought my weary mounts to rest with God's family,

and was met with welcome, ease, and kindness.

I sought refuge with them from the assaults of time,

as a frightened bird turns toward its nest.

So he spread the wing of safety over my fear,

and terror fled from it in utter fright.

Now I do not fear time, for between it and me

stand battalions of noble and numerous men.

Settled here, I watch events from where you cannot see them;

who will tell the sheltered lady of my dwelling?

I dwell with the boldest man to advance when horsemen hold back,

the most forbearing when he overlooks an offense, and the most generous host.

When calamity descends or rain proves scarce,

he is rain for the supplicant and rescue for the desperate.

So, house of al-Wajih, come and play

in your shade, clothed in the brocade of poetic praise.

And you silent full moons of wealth, show yourselves;

as you wish, gleam white or shine yellow.

And you garments of the Yemeni highland, vie

with the stars of darkness, or rival the season of blossoms.

And you who pierce the throat of darkness, seeking

the rising glow of the tents at dawn:

tell the loved ones on my behalf that

I have settled among people who do not yield to force,

and that since I came to Yusuf's court,

the standing of other people falls short of my worth.

I came to a land whose dust is musk,

and trod on pebbles more precious than pearls.

There, thirsty, I drank from a spring of life-giving rain,

and breathed the ambergris of al-Shihr upon its horizons.

I greeted the sun of kingship at the rising place of guidance

and kissed the lion's hand amid the sea's depths.

I placed my hopes in the king of humankind,

and made the gains of hope outweigh its losses.

From the height of eminence I called to my hopes:

Come to the spring of generosity and cheerful welcome!

Prince of the long dark spears and keen short swords,

guardian of God's religion on the distant frontier:

a war's fire has died when you did not kindle it, and deserted

are the homes of people who did not sleep safe from you.

Forces that opposed you were broken, since they

clashed with a sword in the hand of the One, the Eternal.

You left their proud, high-held heads

as dust, while rivers of swords ran through them.

How greatly, by God, you strengthened the faith of guidance;

and how greatly, by God, you humbled the faith of unbelief.

And what a feast day, whose good fortune first greeted you,

saluting you with a near conquest and victory.

And what a fast, whose duties you fulfilled

and provisioned with recitation from the clear Scripture.

You joined its final night to its day

and communed with the Spirit on the Night of Decree,

until it ended for you, though not from weariness.

Blessed was that pure fast, and blessed its breaking.

My lord, if daylight were my page,

and the darkness of night my ink,

and the sharp points of my limbs were tongues,

I would still fall short in praising your eminence and giving thanks.

You restored to us the favor known in your forebears' time,

renewing old bonds; how sweet reunion is after estrangement.

You renewed among us a blessing we had long known,

and we beheld the bright face of a flourishing age.

My two friends, poetry is magic, and I,

if you wish to see it proved, am a Babylon of magic.

Pearls are nothing but what I find myself saying:

my verse is their shore, and my thought their depths.

I have made my praise of you my noblest ornament,

with which I boast before people at gatherings of pride.

And I have prepared my love for your eminence as a means

by which to meet the Merciful on the Day of Gathering.