Sol 6.1

  1. She kept faith when she delayed her promise that day at the sand's bend;

    And her way with me is promises followed by delay.

  2. White antelopes shone from the full moon's mansions, their dwelling

    On the bend, from Dhu al-Arakah to al-Athl.

  3. Sweet of front teeth, among graceful, full-breasted maidens,

    Lovely in their swaying, intoxicated with coquetry.

  4. Full-breasted maidens—except that they are stars

    That rose in beauty's heaven beyond all resemblance.

  5. They clothed their curving limbs in exquisite patterned brocade,

    Which fair youth watered, bucketful upon bucketful.

  6. Their necks were strung with what their mouths contained,

    As the necks of hills wear pearls of dew.

  7. They spent the night on al-Jar'a, on the preserve's right-hand side,

    Grazing in the heart's preserve, not that of moringa trees and sand.

  8. Ah, may a spring raincloud settle over her dwelling,

    Of al-Simak's rain season, unceasing in its downpour,

  9. Among the laughing clouds whose rain exchanges smiles

    With the daisies' mouths in the gardens, in a streaming shower.

  10. Then it bends the laurel's neck toward its oxeye flowers,

    And the buttercup gazes toward it through hazel eyes.

  11. It renews familiar haunts among those traces,

    Where I knew one beautiful in neck and charm,

  12. And a dark-eyed one, heavy-lidded, who, when he gazed,

    Passed round cups of wine with his wide eyes.

  13. My friend, stay with me among the dwellings, that perhaps we

    May question her dwelling about the tender gazelle fawn.

  14. Stay—perhaps it will answer, or perhaps

    I may leave in it some of the madness within me.

  15. If you would stop an hour for your own sake,

    Then spend it standing at those landmarks for mine.

  16. For many a maiden, a white antelope, whose full moons

    Shone within the dark night of her luxuriant hair,

  17. Bared for us daisy-white, well-spaced teeth,

    With renewed draughts of musk wafting through a bright, even row.

  18. One of the supple beauties, white of upper breast and tender,

    Said, 'My victim in passion, though I bear no blood-feud:

  19. Union with me costs your soul, if you desire it;

    Otherwise the Pleiades are nearer to you than union with me.'

  20. I told her, as my eye brimmed with its tears,

    And in my heart a burning fire, its very coolness boiling:

  21. 'I would ransom you, O my soul, with what I own; yet

    Sa'd of humankind possessed it before me.'

  22. Imam of guidance, sea of generosity, subduer of foes,

    An ally of generosity, never slackening in giving through all time.

  23. He is the pure scholar who, with his right hand,

    Has apportioned all excellence in the worlds.

  24. He uncovers creation's secret, and it is he whose

    Deliberation reveals the cipher of truth.

  25. He reveals the light through which have become manifest

    The true natures of the genus and differentia he encounters.

  26. He issues rulings and the wisdom that

    Shows us the path of truth, its ways clear.

  27. He pours forth radiance, the beacon whose

    Name, when invoked, brings down rain in drought.

  28. Teacher to God's shadow of the secrets of His unseen,

    As they stand, from the beginning, in the Mother of the Book.

  29. Murad, seeker of the Truth—may his dominion always

    Be seen united in a fortunate conjunction.

  30. For the presence of Sa'd al-Din in an age like his

    Is witness to God's oneness and justice.

  31. Blessed is He who granted him well-directed judgment,

    Shining upon him like the watered pattern of a blade.

  32. Without you, O Sa'd of all creation, never would

    This kingdom's bonds have become so firmly twisted.

  33. And this reed pen in your right hand, defending it,

    Takes the place of bright swords and slender spears.

  34. Kingship is but a graceful maiden whose charm lies in you;

    Otherwise, what merit have beauties without charm?

  35. O Sa'd, whose fame has traveled

    Like the east wind through east and west, through his gifts,

  36. And you whose will the heavenly spheres obey as they turn,

    And you whose dictation the spheres are almost ready to record:

  37. To your door she came bearing praise, as though

    Wild antelopes' eyes had cast their inward-turned pupils upon her.

  38. She is not classed as poetry when she describes you; rather, she has come

    To rise high upon Sirius's sphere in praising you.

  39. The master poets have shunned weighing her meter,

    As a soul avoids an asp's gaze.

  40. She has a lineage in Tayy, though

    She grew amid al-Sham's gardens, in streaming dew.

  41. Gentle and pure in nature if she is treated gently;

    But treated harshly, the edge of her fang cleaves.

  42. How many like her I have in Rum, which I deemed

    —With you excepted—rain in a barren land.

  43. Learning, forbearance, and reason called her to you,

    And her hope for the downpour of your abundant bounty.

  44. She came to draw wealth from your palm's generosity,

    And to draw down your favor without delay.

  45. Her patience has left nothing of her but a soul

    Suspended between promises and postponement.

  46. Why, then, do you not favor her with intercession,

    When your command, like fate, takes effect in all?

  47. By God, she is no less than the brocade woven by

    Muslim, 'the Slain of Fair Women,' in the adornments of excellence.

  48. And you are a man from whose excellence all excellence comes; whoever

    Doubts is like one who has doubted God and the messengers.

Sol 6.1