خذ يا زمان أماناً من يدي أملي

لا روعت سربك الأطماع من قبلي

Take, O Time, a pledge of safety from the hands of my hope.

May no ambitions of mine frighten your flock.

ولا لبستك مطوياً على دخن

إلا نشرتك ملبوساً على دخل

Never have I worn you folded over hidden rancor

without unfolding you as a garment over guile.

ولا مددت إلى أيدي بنيك يدي

إذا فلا وألت كفي من الشلل

May I never stretch my hand toward your sons' hands;

if I do, may my palm not escape paralysis.

متى اشتفى سقم آمالي بعلتهم

فلا شفى الله آمالي من العلل

Should my ailing hopes ever find healing in their sickness,

may God never cure my hopes of illness.

وإن غشيت إلى سقيا ثمارهم

فلا سقى الله لي قلباً سوى الغلل

And if I come to water their fruits,

may God give my heart nothing to drink but burning thirst.

صانوا بأعراضهم أعراضهم فغدا

شعري وسعري مصوناً غير مبتذل

By turning away, they safeguarded their honor; thus

my poetry and my price remained protected, not cheapened.

وكيف أتركه من غير نافلة

مسيباً بينهم كالسي والنفل

How could I leave it, without a gift,

loose among them like open ground and free bounty?

تركت من كنت أطريه وأطربه

فلا ثقيلي يغنيهم ولا رملي

I have left those whom I used to extol and delight;

neither my thaqil nor my ramal now sings to them.

وكيف أنشط في أوصاف ذي كرم

كسلان يرمي نشاط المدح بالكسل

How can I be eager to describe a generous man

who, slothful, meets the liveliness of praise with sloth?

حليت جيد حلاه وهي عاطلة

وجاءني منه جيد المدح بالعطل

I adorned the neck of his graces, though they were bare;

yet from him the neck of praise came to me unadorned.

أثني وتثني رجال ضمني معهم

وزن الكلام وليس الكحل كالكحل

I praise, and so do men with whom I am joined by

the meter of speech—but kohl is not eyes' natural darkness.

وليس يحفظ إلا ما نطقت به

حتى كأن سوى ما قلت لم يقل

Only what I have spoken is remembered,

as though anything beyond my words had never been said.

ذنبي إلى الدهر فضل لو سترت به

عيب الحوادث لم تنسب إلى الزلل

My offense against Time is excellence: were I to veil with it

the faults of events, they would not be charged with error.

إن آثرت ثروة الدنيا مجانبتي

فإنها ابنة أم الغي والخطل

If the wealth of this world prefers to shun me,

it is a daughter of the mother of error and folly.

ولي إذا شئت من تاج الخلافة من

أرى به شرف الأفعال في رجل

In the Crown of the Caliphate, whenever I wish, I have one

in whom I see noble deeds embodied in a man;

ومن حملت له عهد الأمانة في

ود إذا حال عهد الحر لم يحل

and one to whom I bear a pledge of fidelity in

a love unchanged even if a noble man's pledge should change;

ومن يصرف صرف النائبات له

آراء مكتهل في سن مقتبل

and one for whom the onslaught of calamities is turned aside by

a mature man's counsels in the years of youth.

إن جاد أو كاد في يومي ندى وردى

فاضت أنامله بالرزق والأجل

Whether he gives or plots, on days of bounty or death,

his fingertips overflow with sustenance and doom.

يهوى الحبيبين من بأس ومن كرم

على النقيضين من جبن ومن بخل

He loves the two beloveds, valor and generosity,

above their two opposites, cowardice and avarice.

ولا يحل بثغر حله أبداً

سوى النقيضين من أمن ومن وجل

Nothing ever dwells in a frontier town he has occupied

save the two opposites, safety and dread.

لك العزائم والآراء إن نصبت

بالقول والفعل لم تفلل ولم تفل

Yours are resolves and counsels which, when set forth

in word and deed, are never blunted and never fail.

ورب معضلة لما دعيت لها

كففت ما ناب من أنيابها العضل

Many a knotty difficulty, when you were summoned to it,

you checked what threatened from its formidable fangs.

ومورد تتحامى الأسد مشرعه

وردته بصدور الشرع الذبل

And many a watering place whose approach lions shun

you reached with the points of slender, leveled lances.

أقدمت فيه ونار الموت جامحة

وخضت بحر بلاياه ولم تبل

You advanced there while the fire of death ran wild,

and waded through the sea of its trials without a care.

أطلعت فيه سنا بيض جعلت لها

سود الجماجم أبدالاً من الحلل

There you brought forth the gleam of white swords, for which you made

black skulls substitutes for robes.

وغارة لا يشق الطيف شقتها

طويت فيها بساط الريث بالعجل

And a raid whose distance no dream-phantom could traverse—

you rolled up the carpet of delay in it with haste,

حتى هجمت هجوم الريح في طفل

من العجاجة مستغن عن الطفل

until you burst in like the wind amid a dusk

of dust that had no need of twilight.

باشرتها بحسام غير منثلم

أبا الحسام ولم تسأل عن الأسل

You undertook it with an unnotched sword,

O Abu al-Husam, without asking for lances.

ما كان غدر بني أردن محتسباً

كم حادث جلل في الفكر لم يجل

Banu Urdunn's treachery had not been expected;

how many a grave event has never crossed the mind!

ما ضر مجدك غدر جاء من نفر

أعزك الحول فاغتالوك بالحيل

Treachery from a handful of men has not harmed your glory:

might made you unassailable, so they ambushed you with guile.

إن أمهلتنا الليالي وهي فاعلة

فسوف نسقيهم مثلاً على مهل

If the nights grant us respite—and they will—

we shall give them a like draught, in due course.

لو ناضلوك على الإنصاف عرفهم

مواقع الرمي رام من بني ثعل

Had they contested fairly with you in archery, they would have been shown

where arrows strike by an archer of Banu Thuʿal.

لكم مشوا لك مغتالي في خمر

وعادة الأسد أن تأتى من الغيل

How often they crept toward you as ambushers under cover;

it is the way of lions to be approached from the thicket.

قد كان قصد الأعادي أن تخف لها

وأن ينالك فيها ألسن العذل

The enemies' purpose was for you to act rashly over it,

and for the tongues of reproach to assail you through it.

فصدك العزم عن إدراك ما طلبوا

حاشا خلالك أن تؤتى من الخلل

But resolve kept you from fulfilling what they sought;

far be it from your virtues to be breached through a flaw.

لا يحسبوا أنك الموهون جانبه

وأن جرحك جرح غير مندمل

Let them not think your flank is weakened,

or that your wound is a wound unhealed.

فإن عزك أقوى أن يضيعه

فقد اليسيرين من خيل ومن خول

For your might is too strong to be undone by

the loss of a few horses and a few retainers.

يفديك يا ورد قوم ما ذكرت لهم

إلا علت كل خد وردة الخجل

May a people ransom you, O Ward: you are never mentioned to them

without a rose of shame rising on every cheek.

إن يستجدوا على أبليت جدتها

فما يقاس جديد المجد بالسمل

If they acquire fresh glories, you have already worn out their newness;

fresh glory cannot be compared with threadbare cloth.

وإن أكبر غبن أن تقاس بهم

ما كل غبن من الدنيا بمحتمل

The greatest wrong is that you should be compared with them;

not every wrong in this world can be borne.

لو كان حظ على مقدار منزلة

لم ينزل المشتري عن مرتقى زحل

If fortune were measured by rank,

Jupiter would not descend below Saturn's height.

أما ترى الفلك العلوي قد جعلوا

فيه سميك بعد الثور والحمل

Do you not see how in the celestial sphere they have placed

your namesake after Taurus and Aries?

أوليت أرض بني نصر وما معها

والطير لا يلتقي فيها من الوجل

You were given charge of the land of Banu Nasr and its surroundings,

when birds would not gather there for fear.

فخيم الأمن فيها مذ نزلت بها

حتى لضج الكرى من صحبة المقل

Safety pitched its tent there from the moment you settled,

until sleep cried out from keeping company with eyes.

قد كنت فتحت أبواب الأمان بها

فكيف أقفلتها في ساعة القفل

You had opened the gates of safety there;

how did you close them at the hour of your homeward return?

ما أنت بالرجل المنقوص منزلة

إذا عزلت ولا المزداد بالعمل

You are no man whose rank is diminished

when dismissed, nor raised by holding office.

وكيف يعزل ملك جود راحته

على المكارم وال غير منعزل

How can a king be dismissed when the bounty of his palm

governs noble deeds, itself never dismissed?

فاسلم ودم وابق واسعد واعل واسم وسد

وقل وجد واقتدر واحلم وفز ونل

So be safe, endure, live on, be happy, rise, soar, and rule;

speak, give generously, wield power, be forbearing, triumph, and attain.

واسمع محبرة الأوصاف خاطبة ال

إنصاف طالت معانيها ولم تطل

And hear an ode richly adorned in description, courting

fair judgment: its meanings are long, though it is not.

جاءت جزالتها رقاً ورقتها

معنى بما شئت من سهل ومن جبل

Its stately eloquence comes on parchment, its delicacy

in meaning, with whatever you wish of plain and mountain.