Sol 6

  1. The cloud watered the grounds of that dwelling,

    and the rain of al-Simak al-Azal poured generously upon it.

  2. Time bestowed a freshness on it

    whose beauty was joined by the dawn of a promising age.

  3. Spring clothed its landmarks in mantles

    of green, woven by the north winds.

  4. The winds moved through its environs as

    pure wine moves through the joints.

  5. How often youths made its hills their spring abode,

    like rising full moons that never set.

  6. Long ago I exchanged words of passion with them,

    words like choice wine, clear and flowing.

  7. Then they rose to the heights of leadership and glory,

    while I remained cast into the lowest depths,

  8. distraught among those familiar places, reciting

    after them, in sorrow, the words of Mufaddal:

  9. How splendid that company with whom I shared wine

    one day in Jilliq, in former times,

  10. when fresh youth was just beginning for me

    and a passion for fair women engulfed me without lifting.

  11. I stood at the old haunts, asking

    after the days of youth; whoever failed to ask was disappointed.

  12. I remembered the days of early youth and wept for them,

    as one recalls a beloved on the day of parting, and a home.

  13. I went on reciting among the traces of its ruins,

    my eyes dazed with streaming tears.

  14. Greetings to you, dwelling of my youth;

    may you be watered by the first pouring clouds.

  15. May the breeze settle in your courtyards, so that

    your open grounds become a delight to the contemplative eye.

  16. O dwelling visited by the calamities of separation

    and the blows of time that subdue even the hardiest,

  17. if your grounds have exchanged a steady rain

    for gazelles, or a young woman for one with a child,

  18. I once saw within you lovely young women,

    radiant and fair as full moons.

  19. Each graceful woman, swaying as she walked, was clothed

    across her shoulders in the flowing mantle of youth.

  20. Gentle beauties drank the fresh water of youth from beauty's hand

    and became like garden flowers visited by a morning rain.

  21. She said, seeing my face grown pale

    as I urged the mounts onward in pursuit of distinction:

  22. I halt the riding beasts at the traced remains

    and weep over ruins in a deserted place.

  23. Do you strive to reach the heights,

    worn thin by verse, through known and unknown lands?

  24. By God, you will not rise to an exalted station

    until you come to the foremost seat of that assembly.

  25. It is the court of the lord whose rank is revered,

    the judge of the armies, Ali, exalted in honor.

  26. His judgment serves the seeker of guidance, his bounty

    the petitioner, and his gifts the destitute.

  27. Through him, the days were clothed in the night of their fullness,

    beaming like a rain cloud breaking into a smile.

  28. His face is open and bright, yet dignity crowns it,

    as though its light placed him amid an army.

  29. Chaste in conduct, he trails the robes of piety

    and religion, with the soundest and most complete judgment.

  30. The ambitions of this world do not beguile him, nor

    does he gaze at its fleeting finery.

  31. Through his generosity, liberality has set down its baggage

    since it found in him a resting place for travelers.

  32. I lodged my hopes with him, as though

    I had pitched my camp in a verdant meadow of fulfilled desire.

  33. O you whose pen has a spearpoint

    that strikes more keenly than the edge of a sword,

  34. when the five channels pour it out

    from a sea of thought filled with pearls of eloquence,

  35. the champions of every art of rhetoric submit to him

    in the midst of their assembly when he delivers a decisive address.

  36. Even Abd al-Hamid appears praiseworthy for what

    he composed in the art of elegant correspondence,

  37. and Ibn al-Amid, a pillar of spreading eloquence,

    within whose folds lie the pearls of flowing verse.

  38. Yours is a summit of learning that rises above

    the heads of al-Na'aim and al-Simak al-Azal.

  39. Were Aristotle to try to reach its height,

    he could not, nor could the Master Abu Ali.

  40. My lord, the generosity of your open palm

    surpasses that of the heaviest rain cloud.

  41. May the rain stars never fail your dwelling: it is

    the strongest refuge against the accidents of time.

  42. May the office of state with which you were invested rejoice,

    freely bestowed, as was said of its first holder.

  43. There is no office that your worth does not exceed;

    your lofty glory lends honor to whatever you hold.

  44. And to you has come a maiden who has risen

    through the sphere of poetry in praise of you.

  45. Syrian in origin she has become, yet

    she is Tayyite in lineage whenever asked.

  46. Had she appeared before Quss as he preached

    at Ukaz, a trembling fit would have seized him.

  47. She has sought the loftiest reaches of your court, hoping

    that fortune's glance might look down upon her.

  48. Then she would depart, having drunk her fill

    from your overflowing spring, the sweetest watering place.

  49. May your domain remain protected by a state

    that rises through the noble prestige of its deep-rooted glory.

  50. May the courts of your dwelling be a stopping place for visitors,

    where the hopes of every hopeful person take refuge,

  51. as long as praise of your eminence delights and

    gray doves sing among the swaying branches,

  52. and the breeze of your kindness travels with glad tidings

    that my hopes will be fulfilled without delay.

Sol 6