Sol 6

  1. The colt of youth kept running wild in me

    until I charged against gloomy gray age.

  2. Then I heard her cry the ugliest thing I had heard:

    “What is with this gray-haired man acting young?”

  3. I swear by the Lord of the most honored Kaaba,

    amid a gathering of wine and delight,

  4. and by every unbridled one trailing

    the excess of his robe like a sweeping cloud,

  5. and by the fallen, wounded wine jar, and the sanctity of the

    eloquent string and the plectrum’s pledge:

  6. if I ever swear by such things while twisting their meaning,

    then let it be as though I believed in divining arrows and idols.

  7. And let me be an impostor falsely attached to eloquence,

    stripped of refinement in poetry;

  8. and let my verse be sold among the Kurds, for it

    fetches a high price when sold among the Arabs.

  9. Lofty aspirations have climbed in search of Abu al-Hasan;

    they look to him, proud and unwilling to bend.

  10. Of Musawi and Nasiri lineage on his father’s side,

    and of Alid ancestry on his mother’s side.

  11. There, where prophecy kindled its fire,

    every other flame faded before the light of truth.

  12. I claim nothing for myself before you; through you I claim

    that I have reached the most honored threshold.

  13. May God raise Quraysh still higher through you

    and bring joy to the eyes of Qusayy ibn Kilab.

  14. Generation after generation, you were their aim

    as they passed through their descendants toward you,

  15. until you were born; then their pedigrees slipped from mind,

    and your existence became the noblest lineage.

  16. Are you Hashim’s tongue, whose edge cuts,

    and the eye of Ghalib, conqueror of conquerors?

  17. I complain to you of an evening when we did not part

    through weariness or any quarrel.

  18. You were a paradise that I left

    against my will, and a cry of torment fell upon me.

  19. I bade your house farewell while the sky bestowed on me

    its clouds’ bounty; I see no such feeling in you as in me.

  20. I kept racing onward in my pursuit of reunion,

    vying with horses whose flanks were lean.

  21. I ran with a staff, my briefest armament,

    compelled to do so, though my steed was dear to me.

  22. I saw the road’s precious perfume and musk

    as fragrance prepared for my clothes.

  23. Your cloak—may I never lose its lender—shielded

    my tunic, my turban, and my robes.

  24. You, sea of generosity, supplied my covering,

    while your brother the rain supplied my clothes themselves.

  25. Two rains: one for whose sake

    the clouds were created, the other descended from clouds.

  26. So I arrived to complain of one and thank the other, amid the downpour

    of two rains and all their pouring.

  27. I brought a maiden, untouched, to present to you,

    amid sweet words made noble.

  28. She came to you borne by beauty, though perhaps

    modesty held her just outside the door.

  29. I offered her shyly to one whose

    thoughts probe deeply, whose literary judgment is firm:

  30. the father of verse, son of meanings, indeed the brother of

    eloquent speech and striking expression when they leave his mouth.

  31. Al-Husayn and Musa assured him a rank

    in excellence beyond description.

  32. Look with a pleased eye on what I have fashioned,

    and lend it a generous, forgiving ear.

  33. Overlook any grave error and hide it

    from the eye of the pedantic backbiter.

  34. And recite it aloud if you present it in a gathering

    and happen to find something right among its faults.

Sol 6