أمن رسم دار يشجيك غربه — أبو المعالي الطالوي

Is it because of a dwelling’s trace, whose remoteness grieves you,

that you drew forth pure tears when their flood overflowed?

Its signs were effaced by the south wind’s weaving together with the east wind,

and by every thunderous downpour whose torrent streamed.

There the rainstorm obliterated half of it, until it seemed

a crescent amid the dwelling, burnished by its gleaming edge.

I halted my companions there, questioning its trace

about one like her, while my eyelid shed its flowing tears,

at a ruin whose tracery resembles inscriptions

telling the need of a lover whose estrangement from the dwelling has grown long.

I say, now that annihilation has settled in its courtyards

and distance, together with its severity, has exhausted its people:

May the first full rush of a passing cloud water your familiar abode,

its torrent pouring upon the blackened hearthstones.

And many a night, like the day of parting, spread its pavilion

over me, while its darkness brought the stars to light.

Through it I watched the bright stars swimming

in a sea of darkness whose swell had surged.

My gaze kept watch upon the wandering stars, as though

from staring so long its sight had been tethered to the fixed stars.

There I remembered meeting the beloved, though between us lay

the highlands and peaks of the Hijaz, and its western reaches.

Remembrance then kindled in me a fire of yearning,

for which my eyelid began casting tears in torrents,

until the hand of morning drew its saber

and the Milky Way sword’s bright edge was sheathed.

The stars of night turned away, fallen like the slain, as though

a draught from the cup’s mouth had been poured over them.

The army of dawn advanced, plunging its sword

into the throat of darkness, while night raced toward the west.

A ringdove of the moringa tree murmured above the grove

in a garden amply watered by the clouds’ abundant pour.

Then a moon-faced youth sprang up to pass the wine, adorned

when he rose to show it to the drinkers by his lively grace—

a gazelle, reed-supple in stature, at whose mouth

flow chains of wine, its moisture curing sickness;

with a smooth cheek whose beauty wounds the mind,

and a kohl-dark eye whose piercing glance breathes magic.

He shows you pearl-like teeth arrayed within it,

like David’s speech when its eloquent power surges forth.

A youth whom virtue has clothed in a robe of awe,

before which his opponent’s saliva has dried in his mouth.

To you this desert-born ode has come, traversing the wasteland,

unwearied by the journey’s length or its hardship.

O you who have ascended the summits of lofty honors, whose thought

in inquiry has an edge keener than a lion’s fang:

more delicate than red wine—marvel at how it captivates—

and sweeter than a mouth whose moisture holds honey.

Had it one day been presented to Ghaylan,

his eyelid’s flood would not be drowning Mayy’s ruins.

So take it: may it never cease to rise toward the heights

for all time, so long as the rain-cloud watering the dwelling pours its torrent,

so long as the gray ringdoves sing at morning

and the face of the world shines as its gloom clears away.