1. He recognized the dwellings by surmise and revisited them,

    after decay had overtaken their grounds.

  2. Save fixed hearthstones, all of which had felt the heat of

    a red fire whose blaze the camp's people kindled.

  3. They had been mounts for cooking-pots, then were stripped

    of them; time had stolen their ashes.

  4. At Shubaykat al-Hawar, in whose western tract

    the traces of its pools had lost those who came to drink.

  5. They became utterly unrecognizable after we left,

    yet the land knows its gullies and barren tracts.

  6. And many a radiant-browed, modest maiden,

    fair-skinned, had driven her tent-pegs there.

  7. Her beauty ensnares the man beguiled by youthful passion

    in passing, striking him dead; he will never ensnare her.

  8. Like a young, solitary doe, grazing

    her land's barren stretches and rain-watered grounds.

  9. The thickets of the sandy, stony tracts have dyed her brow

    from rubbing against their 'alajan and 'arad shrubs.

  10. Like adornment on a bride's face; she grew unreserved

    after her shyness and played with her fawns.

  11. She urges on a nasal-voiced fawn; the needle-tip of his horn seems

    a pen that has taken ink from the inkwell.

  12. She went with him through a bewildering tract of 'Alij,

    a wilderness where its wild creatures nurse their young,

  13. along the track of a thunder-chanting cloud, where

    bright, heavy clouds burst their waterskins.

  14. So you see its hollows, which hold moist earth,

    and its depressions, their vegetation delighting their pasture-seekers.

  15. Su'ad departed and broke her promise,

    and went far from us to withhold her sustenance.

  16. Indeed, when my beloved does not keep her bond with me,

    and draws away from me, I forgive her estrangement.

  17. And when a female companion persists in harshness

    from her rancor, her partner tires of guiding her.

  18. If you see gray hair spreading through my locks,

    until whiteness gleams over their blackness,

  19. yet a young woman's hand would once lie all night as a pillow

    for me, while I made my left hand her pillow.

  20. And I accompany the vast army as a horseman,

    among the horses, I witness their charges and pursuits.

  21. And many a poem I spent the night piecing together,

    until I straightened its crookedness and rhyme faults,

  22. as a shaft-straightener examines the knots of his spear,

    until his straightening-tool corrects its bends.

  23. I have indeed found pleasure in living,

    and faced the severest hardships of adversity.

  24. So I concealed the faults of my livelihood with generosity,

    and in abundant comfort observed its proper measure.

  25. And I have lived so long that I no longer ask a learned man

    about a single thing, to add it to my knowledge.

  26. May God bless a man I bade farewell,

    and perfect His favor upon him and increase it.

  27. And when spring's rainfalls follow one another,

    it waters Khunasirah of al-Ahass and drenches her.

  28. Al-Walid settled there and became, for its people,

    rain that brought relief to its inhabitants and lands.

  29. Do you not see that all creation

    has cast its nose-reins to him, and he has led it?

  30. Indeed, God intended, when He gave you rule over it,

    the reform and right guidance of a nation.

  31. You made the Muslims' land flourish, and it prospered,

    and banished from it whoever sought its ruin.

  32. And in the enemy's land you inflicted a calamity

    that reached the furthest of its lowlands and uplands:

  33. a victory and triumph whose like had never been attained

    by any of the allies who had sought it.

  34. And when you proclaim his praise, you find him

    having gathered noble qualities, both newly won and inherited.

  35. Al-Walid surpassed the generous in generosity,

    and spared Quraysh whatever befell it, becoming its chief.

  36. The spoils of the mighty come to him by force,

    by compulsion; and he gathers the equipment of war.

  37. And when he sees the enemy's fire blazing,

    he challenges its assembled people and outmaneuvers them,

  38. with a vast, clamorous army that buries the hills,

    like a lava-field whose mountains the morning glare bears aloft.

  39. You quenched the enemy's fires, and there was kindled

    a fire whose fire-sticks you struck with your two palms.

  40. So its illuminating proof appeared to those who followed guidance,

    and the heat of its sparks struck those who envied it.

  41. And if one day he goes forth with a gust of bounty,

    its like presents itself the next day, and he gives it again.

  42. And when horses race toward a finishing-post,

    then he is the first to arrive, leading their finest steeds.

Sol 6.1