مولاي شرفت الربوع وطال ما — أبو المعالي الطالوي

My lord, you have ennobled these haunts—and how often

the dwellings, through you, have flourished as hills and landmarks.

You sent forth from the virgin fruits of your thought a maiden

toward me, and I rejoiced in her, love-tormented and wandering:

a virgin with languid eyes; whenever she gazed,

she unsheathed against you keen swords of glances.

And when she swayed, strutting with the exuberance of youth,

she put the tender bough of the arak tree to shame—

like a garden in the early evening, upon whose

boughs dusky doves sang longingly.

The south wind’s hand had embroidered it with a bank of cloud,

dark-hued, while the breath of its fragrance spread richly.

She brought the greeting of one whose rank rose high,

until he became a star rising above the Milky Way’s star:

a lord encompassing every kind of virtue,

who, through your excellence, became an arbiter among her sons.

Within her folds she had carried some of his fragrance—

a scent surpassing caravans laden with ambergris.

She struck longing’s firesteel to sparks within my breast,

for I had not known the appointed time of the visit.

But when I broke open her seal

and kissed from her a smiling mouth of gleaming teeth,

I hastened toward the purpose for which she had come,

deeming the journey there inevitable and binding.

And when a friend one day addresses his friend

with a word, I count that word a decisive deed.

Can the creed of loyalty permit that there be seen

anyone but me undertaking this charge, even for a day?

No! Then may I never journey at all, nor may

my foot strive to attain momentous affairs.

My lord, O companion of pure friendship, whose

character is like gardens breathing fragrant breezes—

speak no more of him praising whom you squandered your life,

forever extolling him before the armies,

until one day a need summoned you to him

and in that need you found him suspect and craven.

I have indeed tested the men of this age and found

among them nothing but a weakling styled “resolute.”

So abandon them as ostrich chicks abandon a forsaken egg

in a trackless wilderness, desolate and dark.

Shun all but loyalty’s companion, and never show yourself

at peace with the sons of Time.

May you remain a garden fresh with virtues,

offering us the smiling blossoms of meaning,

as long as a turtledove warbles in a grove

and the reed pen inscribes the cheek of a page.