Sol 6.1

  1. O season of joy and fresh first bloom of love,

    May the season of rain water you with a shimmering downpour.

  2. And may autumn rain lavishly water your abode, driven along

    By the east wind, between pouring showers and streaming torrents.

  3. And may gray doves sing on your hills, coming early

    With Maʿbad's melody, reciting the sweetest tidings.

  4. May you never cease to be a haven for beauties, nor

    May separation's hands strike you with a perilous calamity.

  5. May the breaths of the breeze never visit you intermittently, nor

    May successive showers pass your dwellings by.

  6. How many I had there, when my tender youth was dawning—

    Dwellings filled with longing and remembrance!

  7. How many full moons I beheld from their rising places!

    How much moonlight was won beneath their radiance!

  8. From every tender beauty who carries my patience away,

    Whom beauty adorned with coy grace and luminous dark eyes.

  9. A tender girl whom the hand of days clothed in youth's robe,

    And the nights made her a temptation to mankind.

  10. Slender-waisted: girlhood poured the water of youth over

    Her curves, and clothed her in a robe of modesty.

  11. She rose to embrace me on the day of farewell, when I had

    Strung round her neck the clear pearls of my tears.

  12. She says, as separation's riding camels surround her,

    And tears drip upon her cheek from apprehension:

  13. Do not reproach Time if its ways have changed;

    For the purity of its splendor has never been free of murk.

  14. And if you wish to guard against the calamities of its turns,

    Then seek refuge in the shade of Imad al-Din, and be sheltered.

  15. A lord whose sanctuary has become safety for the terrified; likewise,

    His spacious domain is a refuge for the fearful and wary.

  16. He has never ceased to rise, ascending toward the heights,

    With lordly honor, his glory towering above the bright stars,

  17. Until he mounted the lofty saddlebacks of glory,

    Striding proudly in robes of compositions and choice gems.

  18. With ambition manifest as a lion in proud vigor,

    And determination like the cutting power of a hard-steeled sword.

  19. No learned man ever raced him toward a goal

    In debate without turning back, faltering and speechless.

  20. His brown pens, upon the white pages, when

    They move, show you the deeds of bright swords and brown spears.

  21. His traits are like the fragrance of a flower-filled garden,

    When it has draped itself with rivers and pools.

  22. He meets you with an open face, smiling,

    With speech sweeter to approach than to leave.

  23. No garden, watered by the rain-bearing stars at dawn,

    Its rain-drenched great trees crowned with blossoms,

  24. The clouds secretly lavishing their downpour upon it,

    And the east wind lending it the gentleness of pre-dawn,

  25. Then adorned with blossoms after rain, standing beside

    The river of al-Ubulla, a beauty that delights the eye—

  26. You fancy the chamomile blossoms in its thickets

    Are the Milky Way's blossoms, spared the hand of change;

  27. Doves sing upon its branches before dawn,

    Stirring longing in the heart of one aflame—

  28. Is ever fairer to behold than his qualities,

    Nor sweeter in scent than their fragrant breath.

  29. O learned man, whose mind's maiden thoughts have so often unveiled

    The choicest meanings for us, in the fairest forms!

  30. And O son of the noble, and of those who through their resolve raised

    The pillar of eminence aloft in bygone ages;

  31. And O pillar of the house of excellence, who raises it up,

    When its weakness had left it in jeopardy;

  32. To your heights it has come: accept, despite its flaws,

    Its woven fabric, O chief of nomads and townsfolk.

  33. May you ever dwell in blessings, rising through their nobility above

    The crowns of the two Simaks, where the Eagle has never flown,

  34. As long as a turtledove mourns in the groves, and as long as

    The gray doves coo at evening and at dawn;

  35. And as long as the reed pen's embellishment brocades the page with what

    Puts to shame the brocade of hills smiling with flowers.

Sol 6.1