Sol 6.1

  1. Gray hair has overtaken me and blazed brightly,

    And covered my hair-partings and the back of my head.

  2. After folly, I have been given forbearance,

    And after dalliance—so be content with the exchange.

  3. Never did you dally in the nights

    With one like the maiden who follows the gazelle.

  4. As though a cloud had sprinkled from its heights

    Sweet, limpid water over her canine teeth.

  5. Nor is rainwater in a deserted place, stirred

    By a south wind that shook the dews from it,

  6. With daisies fluttering at its two edges,

    Where firm ground meets the sands,

  7. Any sweeter than she by night, when

    She bends her full, rounded limbs for her bedfellow.

  8. So her days have become days gone by,

    And she severed our bond, loathing union.

  9. Except that I shall weep among the dwellings

    At Burqat Dahik, for long years.

  10. And love, after you, has vanished from me,

    So I see no coy charm in any beautiful woman.

  11. And in my distress I reproached myself,

    And self-reproach avails not a sandal-strap's worth.

  12. And many a desert where the caravan loses its way,

    As though blankets lay over its passes,

  13. I crossed with young men and nose-ringed she-camels,

    Which butt against the saddle-rests and blankets.

  14. They miscarry their fetuses, urged on at speed,

    Where gray ostriches rear their chicks.

  15. When their whips swung above them

    In a vast waste, and they raced through it at full speed,

  16. They left enduring signs of their halts there;

    They dropped their still-wrapped young there in haste.

  17. They remain, when the saddles are taken off them,

    Gaunt and lank, as though afflicted with fever.

  18. If any hope lies in their footpads,

    Then their footpads have already borne balanced loads.

  19. They came to Amr and found in his bounty

    Brimming buckets of goodness—he has buckets indeed.

  20. Are you not, by lineage, Quraysh's noble man,

    And its most generous and finest among men?

  21. Noble stations have forbidden you [dishonor],

    And wisdom of yours that weighs as much as mountains.

  22. And Quraysh has learned that among you

    Are swords whenever battle is joined.

  23. When death casts its shadows

    In a cramped battleground, they strip those shadows away.

  24. How fine a resting-place for guests at night,

    When the dry she-camels face the north wind!

  25. Abu Hafs, may God reward you well,

    When one who claims kinship is loath to ask.

  26. A generous man who, when approached, never says

    To anyone in need, ever: “Indeed, no!”

  27. His right hand pours out goodness in abundance,

    And his gifts never meet his left hand.

  28. Nor is this sea, whose twin surges cast up bounty

    Through its divers, in an outpouring as it flows,

  29. More generous than Abu Hafs, when

    Pale camels come to him, cutting through stony tracts.

  30. And their neighbor is more unassailable than the Pleiades,

    When they knot the ropes of protection for their neighbor.

  31. He is the noble, virile camel-bull, when Quraysh

    Counts its sires for a day of defending honor.

  32. I adjured you, then returned—so return with bounty;

    And the best of bounty is what is poured in repeated draughts.

  33. So prove my praise true, and reward a noble man

    Who, when he abstains from a town, stays away long.

Sol 6.1