Sol 6.1

  1. He was swept among the graceful beauties, wherever it swept—

    by a heart that never forsook its pact with Lamya.

  2. A slender-waisted beauty who shames a bending bān bough,

    and the white gazelle turning, and the gazelle when it appears.

  3. Slim at both sashes, full at the anklets, she never unveiled

    without her radiance making the midmorning sun jealous.

  4. A tender beauty swaying in the two cloaks of youth and love,

    and bending in pride, merry with the intoxication of youth.

  5. Childhood and fresh youth watered her cheek

    with beauty's water, an evening and a morning draught.

  6. I sought to sip from her dusky lips the coolness of her saliva,

    to quench with it the flames of longing that had flared.

  7. So she turned away at a gleam of white hair, saying:

    How far away he is, set apart from us and cast aside!

  8. Far beyond reach is union with beautiful, alluring women, when in

    the night of youth the dawn of gray hair has shone clear.

  9. So I said, my eyes brimming, and in my heart

    an ache from which I endure longing and anguish:

  10. That is not from old age—may you be kept well, Lamya!

    I swear by youth's comforted eye: it has not grown sore.

  11. And only the vicissitudes of the days have brought it,

    as you see, and time, which has long wrought harm.

  12. My virtues came to charge me with attaining greatness in it,

    and a resolve that never flags, pursuing it wherever it turns,

  13. and an ambition that will not accept a star as its station,

    ascribed to a heart that has toiled toward the heights.

  14. And speech whose vision Orion strings together,

    yet in describing Imad al-Din it has had to toil.

  15. A lord whose noble deeds exhaust all praise:

    thus everyone who praises falls short of them.

  16. One of lords who inherited the heights and shared

    glory's noble deeds among themselves as gifts.

  17. Each of them is radiant and openly cheerful; his bright brow

    shines as clear light amid gloom that has grown dark.

  18. He reveals a face whose appearance shows you the full moon;

    everyone who glimpses him lowers his gaze in modesty.

  19. Alongside qualities dewy as gardens when

    the rain-clouds' downpour has shed its tears within them.

  20. A leader of the people of piety and learning, whose habit

    is bestowing bounty from hands whose largesse flows.

  21. Aspirations grow weary, falling short of his ambition,

    when he goes forth making demands upon the heights.

  22. So seek refuge in him, a mountain of learning: were he weighed against

    Radwa's peaks, mighty as they are, he would outweigh them.

  23. He shows you through his revealing speech, when

    his lofty eloquence speaks, what silences the eloquent.

  24. How many a difficulty for understanding has become clear through him,

    and how many a locked mystery has subtle thought opened!

  25. He has a reed pen: when it rises above his fingertips,

    you behold a gallant girded with a Khatti spear.

  26. And if his stylus moves across the face of the page,

    you fancy a speckled serpent amid a garden, its mouth gaping.

  27. Neither the lion when it wounds, nor the rain when it drips,

    nor time when it is generous, nor the sea when it overflows,

  28. is sharper-edged than he, more prompt in delivering ransom,

    more generous-handed than he, or more bountiful than he when he gives.

  29. So tell whoever seeks to match him in excellence:

    Desist—may I lose you!—and accept a counselor's advice.

  30. Truly, high honors among mankind are gifts

    apportioned, and the God of the Throne has bestowed them.

  31. And take her, a beauty among the daughters of thought:

    her heart has never inclined toward any abode but yours.

  32. You would think her a luxuriant garden that has donned

    robes of blossoms as sashes about her sides.

  33. Within her, the south wind's hand has loosened the bucket's ties—

    a white hand—and birds have sung upon her branches.

  34. From a slave in bondage who hopes you will contract for his freedom,

    as a favor, so that time may be tamed after running wild.

  35. May you ever defend excellence's sanctuary in a land

    where people, like young cattle roaming the plain,

  36. have joined together in giving error currency among themselves,

    until even the eloquent claimed it, despite its loathsomeness;

  37. as long as seekers make for your courtyard, and as long as

    camels' humps bear the morning travelers and the evening travelers.

Sol 6.1