Sol 6.1

  1. Rejoice, my heart; may you never cease rejoicing,

    taking pleasure in enchanting women, playful.

  2. Hope has returned smiling to your life,

    like spring returning, fresh and fair, to your haven.

  3. No calamities of time have frightened you

    as they passed, to make you forget a home and a beloved.

  4. Renew your passion, for Hind still

    keeps faith with you, whether far away or near.

  5. What fault is there in a yearning lover's remembrance, if

    he honors the beloved with love lyrics and amatory verse?

  6. No beautiful woman holds absolute sway over a love-stricken man

    except to make his life sweet and pleasant.

  7. Love and I are companions; neither has found

    in the other any cause for suspicion.

  8. I accept what love decrees, and find its injustice

    justice; I defy blame and reproach.

  9. And it gives me refinement and goodness, even though

    I have endured ardent longing and torment from it.

  10. Youth and beauty have divided between them

    my mind, so I am not turning back to sound judgment.

  11. O Hind, let it suffice you that your lover

    has become a captive in your hands, despoiled.

  12. Will you grant me good fortune, that I may remain a lover,

    or will you deny the faithful one a share?

  13. And tenderness by which I live—or cruelty

    toward the lovesick, making an envier and a watcher gloat?

  14. More deserving of life's serenity is a garden bird

    that sings, so the birds deem it a stranger.

  15. And more deserving of distinction is a nation's poet,

    who has ever been within it, calling and answering.

  16. Faithful—when the land's companion leaves it,

    he fills the land with remembrance and lamentation.

  17. And he overflows with joy at its festivals, and so has not

    left anyone there grieving or afflicted.

  18. O radiant glory of the age, through which

    its Abbas dispelled the frown from his Egypt.

  19. The son of the Nile must remember a dawning

    of yours that lit up eyes and hearts.

  20. Accession Day, through you the world grew serene,

    the world you made forget past calamities and griefs.

  21. I shall surely delight my eyes as I roam,

    welcoming pleasures of many kinds in you.

  22. And in every city I see adornment for you,

    and in every gathering a singer and an orator.

  23. And the earth sends forth its arrows like written lines,

    presenting the sky with its cherished greeting.

  24. Or they are pillars that have raised its canopy

    and kept it from bending downward in its yearning.

  25. And as though the pieces of light were stars

    that followed a wondrous orbit in the sky.

  26. Or they are doves that have flown free from the

    hunter, seeking escape in open space.

  27. Or they are fruit nestled amid a valley

    on the horizon, fertile, the breeze playing with it.

  28. And as though what follows it, bringing it down to earth,

    were balls a hand hurled at it, and it was struck.

  29. And the full moon is your face, O son of Tawfiq; it neither

    draws near enough for us to touch it, nor is it veiled.

  30. And those delegations seem like battalions

    you have carefully arrayed for conquest.

  31. Whispered confidences appear upon their faces, just as

    your written name takes on colors of light.

  32. Indeed, he who gave the land life through its Nile

    will restore its usurped glory there for you.

  33. It gave you its lofty throne, and you gave it

    justice; thus you were both the giver and the gift.

  34. No peoples will gain their ends from it

    while you remain among them, discerning and holding them to account.

  35. And they will withdraw, as before them withdrew

    nations mightier in battles and wars.

  36. Strive to make us forget, through promised contentment,

    the guilt and sins committed by those who have gone before.

  37. We indeed hope, after your preparations that

    dazzled your envier, for a battle cry, then a charge.

  38. No homeland is safe from its age's treachery,

    nor is its flank supremely strong and feared,

  39. until its skin gleams

    with enemy blood and its banner is dyed.

  40. Indeed, your connection with the caliph guarantees

    driving the raider back, terrified and defeated.

  41. And the clear proof lies in your hand, which

    has opened a spacious field for jihad.

  42. And the East still has the greatest claim to its sun,

    even though the sun prolongs its setting away from it.

  43. Had it not intended to return with its light

    higher and lovelier, it would not have set.

  44. It wrought glorious deeds and rested, and surely it

    will spring up, stronger than its brother, fearsome.

  45. It has returned, a child in the cradle, with glad tidings,

    after gray age, that it will be gifted.

  46. It grows, and your kindness toward it, O son of Tawfiq,

    is kindness that restores the gray-haired to youth.

  47. O lord of the two thrones: this one rules

    Egypt, and that its Sudan and Nubia.

  48. And commander of the two armies: this one surges,

    guarding the north, while that marches south.

  49. And upholder of Islam with the banner that

    has come to shade tribes and peoples.

  50. You gilded both my fringes with the favors that

    thoroughly refined my poems in your praise.

  51. So praises are yours, as long as one in despair is rescued

    by hope, and the rewarded remembers his rewarder.

Sol 6.1