Sol 6.1

  1. Who will restore youth, pleasure, and courtship to me?

    What has passed of your earliest days is far beyond reach.

  2. Day and night have folded up what I used to unfold,

    And the wide-eyed women no longer recognize me.

  3. And reason has kept me from her and disciplined me,

    So I do not weep over a campsite's trace or shaded shelters.

  4. What have I to do with the dusty ruin, that I should rebuke it,

    Or with the dwellings of Khawf and Malal?

  5. When can an alert young man attain his ambition,

    If he dwells in the abode of pleasure and courtship?

  6. My occupation is with horses and fluttering black banners;

    Love-longing and tawny wine are no concern of mine.

  7. I have hoped for nothing but a noble deed,

    And the soul is bound to craving and hope.

  8. My offense against the cavalry is my charge into its flanks,

    When the lion walks through it with a madman's gait.

  9. And mine is the deep tumult of the iron-dark host,

    When champions plunge into it with stratagems.

  10. Many a rugged flank—its ranks I have assailed at dawn,

    With a death-bearing cloud, streaming in torrents.

  11. And many a deep melee I have waded through, its heights and depths,

    With blows and thrusts, amid white blades and spears.

  12. Ask al-Jarada about me on the day she carries me:

    Has a champion escaped me, or have I shrunk from a champion?

  13. And has their leading racer outrun me to the finish lines?

    And have I turned for help to anything but slender lances?

  14. Why do I see those under my protection calling down my blood like rain?

    Am I not the worthiest of them in word and deed?

  15. How can one approach a tawny, massive lion,

    With death's vanguard in his curved fangs?

  16. And what would they want from a lion, were it not for doom,

    Cloaked in night, his eyes lined with embers?

  17. He drinks water only from a well of blood,

    And no neighbor under his protection spends the night in fear.

  18. Were it not for the Imam and the duty of obedience to him,

    I would surely have drunk blood sweeter than honey.

Sol 6.1