Stay!—let us weep at the remembrance of our beloved, at the sight of the station where her tent was raised, by the edge of yon bending sands between Dahul and Haumel,
“Tudam and Mikra; a station, the marks of which are not wholly effaced, though the south wind and the north have woven the twisted sand.”
Thus I spoke, when my companions stopped their coursers by my side, and said: “Perish not through dispair: only be patient.”
“A profusion of tears,” answered I, “is my sole relief; but what avails it to shed them over the remains of a deserted mansion?”
“Thy condition,” they replied, “is not more painful than when thou leftest Howaira, before thy present passion, and her neighbor Rebaba on the hills of Masel.”
“Yes,” I rejoined, “when those two damsels departed, musk was diffused from their robes, as the eastern gale sheds the scent of the clove-gillyflowers:
“Then gushed the tears from my eyes, through excess of regret, and flowed down my neck, till my sword-belt was drenched in the stream.”
“Yet hast thou passed many days in sweet converse with the fair: but none so sweet as the day which thou spentest by the pool of Daratjuljul.”
On that day I killed my camel, to give the virgins a feast; and, oh how strange was it that they should carry his trappings and furniture!
The damsels continued till evening helping one another to the roasted flesh, and to the delicate fat, like the fringe of white silk finely woven.
On that happy day I entered the carriage, the carriage of Onaiza, who said: “Wo to thee! Thou wilt compel me to travel on foot.”
She added (while the vehicle was bent aside with our weight), “O Amriolkais, descend, or my beast also will be killed!”
I answered: “Proceed, and loosen his rein; nor withhold from me the fruits of thy love, which again and again may be tasted with rapture.
“Many a fair one like thee—though not, like thee, a virgin—have I visited by night; and many a lovely mother have I diverted from the care of her yearling infant, adorned with amulets:
“When the suckling behind her cried, she turned round to him with half her body; but half of it, pressed beneath my embrace, was not turned from me.”
Delightful, too, was the day when Fatima first rejected me on the summit of yon sand-hill, and took an oath, which she declared inviolable.
“O Fatima!” said I, “away with so much coyness; and if thou hadst resolved to abandon me, yet at last relent!
“If indeed my disposition and manners are unpleasing to thee, rend at once the mantle of my heart, that it may be detached from thy love.
“Art thou so haughty, because my passion for thee destroys me; and because whatever thou commandest my heart performs?
“Thou weepest; yet thy tears flow merely to wound my heart with the shafts of thine eyes—my heart, already broken to pieces and agonizing.”
Besides thee, with many a spotless virgin, whose tent had not yet been frequented, have I held soft dalliance at perfect leisure.
To visit one of them, I passed the guards of her bower, and a hostile tribe, who would have been eager to proclaim my death.
It was the hour when the Pleiads appeared in the firmament, like the folds of a silken sash variously decked with gems.
I approached: she stood expecting me by the curtain; and, as if she was preparing for sleep, had put off all her vesture but her night-dress.
She said: “By Him who created me,” and gave me her lovely hand, “I am unable to refuse thee; for I perceive that the blindness of thy passion is not to be removed.”
Then I rose with her; and as we walked she drew over our footsteps the train of her pictured robe.
Soon as we had passed the habitations of her tribe, and come to the bosom of the vale, surrounded with hillocks of spiry sand,
I gently drew her towards me by her curled locks, and she softly inclined to my embrace; – her waist was gracefully slender, but sweetly swelled the part encircled with ornaments of gold.
Delicate was her shape; fair her skin; and her body well proportioned: her bosom was as smooth as a mirror,
Or, like the pure egg of an ostrich, of a yellowish tint blended with white, and nourished by a stream of wholesome water not yet disturbed.
She turned aside, and displayed her soft cheek: she gave a timid glance with languishing eyes, like those of a roe in the groves of Wegera looking tenderly at her young.
Her neck was like that of a milk-white hind, but, when she raised it, exceeded not the justest symmetry; nor was the neck of my beloved so unadorned.
Her long coal-black hair decorated her back, thick and diffused, like bunches of dates clustering on the palm-tree.
Her locks were elegantly turned above her head; and the riband which bound them was lost in her tresses, part braided, part disheveled.
She discovered a waist taper as a well-twisted cord; and a leg both as white and as smooth as the stem of a young palm, or a fresh reed, bending over the rivulet.
When she sleeps at noon, her bed is besprinkled with musk: she puts on her robe of undress, but leaves the apron to her handmaids.
She dispenses gifts with small, delicate fingers, sweetly glowing at their tips, like the white and crimson worm of Dabia, or dentrifices made of esel-wood.
The brightness of her face illumines the veil of night, like the evening taper of a recluse hermit.
Or a girl like her, a girl of a moderate height, between those who wear a frock and those who wear a gown, the most bashful man must look with an enamoured eye.
The blind passions of men for common objects of affection are soon dispersed; but from the love of thee my heart cannot be released.
O how oft have I rejected the admonitions of a morose adviser, vehement in censuring my passion for thee; nor have I been moved by his reproaches!
Often has the night drawn her skirts around me, like the billows of the ocean, to make trial of my fortitude in a variety of cares;
And I said to her, when she seemed to extend her sides, to drag on her unwieldy length, and to advance slowly with her breast:
“Dispel thy gloom, O tedious night! That the morn may rise; although my sorrows are such, that the morning-light will not give more comfort than thy shades.
“O hideous night! – a night in which the stars are prevented from rising, as if they were bound to a solid cliff with strong cables!”
Often, too, have I risen at early dawn, while the birds were yet in their nests, and mounted a hunter with smooth short hair, of a full height, and so fleet as to make captive the beasts of the forest;
Ready in turning, quick in pursuing, bold in advancing, firm in backing; and performing the whole with the strength and swiftness of a vast rock which a torrent has pushed from its lofty base;
A bright bay steed, from whose polished back the trappings slide, as drops of rain glide hastily down the slippery marble.
Even in his weakest state he seems to boil while he runs; and the sound which he makes in his rage is like that of a bubbling cauldron.
When other horses that swim through the air are languid and kick the dust, he rushes on like a flood, and strikes the hard earth with a firm hoof.
He makes the light youth slide from his seat, and violently shakes the skirts of a heavier and more stubborn rider;
Rapid as the pierced wood in the hands of a playful child, which he whirls quickly round with a well-fastened cord.
He has the loins of an antelope, and the thighs of an ostrich; he trots like a wolf, and gallops like a young fox.
Firm are his haunches; and when his hinder parts are turned towards you, he fills the space between his legs with a long thick tail, which touches not the ground and inclines not to either side.
His back, when he stands in his stall, resembles the smooth stone on which perfumes are mixed for a bride, or the seeds of coloquintenda are bruised.
The blood of the swift game, which remains on his neck, is like the crimson juice of hinna on gray flowing locks.
He bears us speedily to a herd of wild cattle, in which the heifers are fair as the virgins in black trailing robes, who dance round the idol Dewaar:
They turn their backs, and appear like the variegated shells of Yemen on the neck of a youth distinguished in his tribe for a multitude of noble kinsmen.
He soon brings us up to the foremost of the beasts, and leaves the rest far behind; nor has the herd time to disperse itself.
He runs from wild bulls to wild heifers, and overpowers them in a single heat, without being bathed, or even moistened with sweat.
Then the busy cook dresses the game, roasting part, baking part on hot stones, and quickly boiling the rest in a vessel of iron.
In the evening we depart; and when the beholder’s eye ascends to the head of my hunter, and then descends to his feet, it is unable at once to take in all his beauties.
His trappings and girths are still upon him: he stands erect before me, not yet loosed for pasture.
O friend, seest thou the lightning, whose flashes resemble the quick glance of two hands, amid clouds raised above clouds?
The fire of it gleams like the lamps of a hermit, when the oil poured on them shakes the cord by which they are suspended.
I sit gazing at it, while my companions stand between Daaridge and Odhaib; but far distant is the cloud on which my eyes are fixed.
Its right side seems to pour its rain on the hills of Katan, and its left on the mountains of Sitaar and Yadbul.
It continues to discharge its waters over Cotaifa till the rushing torrent lays prostrate the groves of canahbel-trees.
It passes over mount Kenaan, which it deluges in its course, and forces the wild goats to descend from every cliff.
On mount Taima it leaves not one trunk of a palm tree, nor a single edifice, which is not built with well-cemented stone.
Mount Tebeir stands in the heights of the flood, like a venerable chief wrapped in a striped mantle.
The summit of Mogaimir, covered with the rubbish which the torrent has rolled down, looks in the morning like the top of a spindle encircled with wool.
The cloud unloads its freight on the desert of Ghabeit, like a merchant of Yemen alighting with his bales of rich apparel.
The small birds of the valley warble at day break, as if they had taken their early draught of generous wine mixed with spice.
The beasts of the wood, drowned in the floods of night, float, like roots of wild onions, at the distant edge of the lake.
Translated by Sir William Jones1
Gone are they the lost camps, light flittings, long sojournings in
Miná, in Gháula, Rijám left how desolate.
Lost are they. Rayyán lies lorn with its white torrent beds, scored
in lines like writings left by the flood water.
Tent-floors smooth, forsaken, bare of all that dwelt in them,
years how long, the war-months, months too of peace-pleasures.
Spots made sweet with Spring-rains fresh-spilled from the
Zodiac, showers from clouds down-shaken, wind-wracks and thunder-clouds;
Clouds how wild of night-time, clouds of the dawn darkening,
clouds of the red sunset, – all speak the name of her.
Here, in green thorn-thickets, does bring forth how fearlessly;
here the ostrich-troops come, here too the antelopes.
Wild cows, with their wild calf-sucklings, standing over them,
while their weanlings wander wide in the bare valleys.
Clean-swept lie their hearth-stones, white as a new manuscript
writ with texts fresh-graven, penned by the cataracts,
Scored with lines and circles, limned with rings and blazonings,
as one paints a maid’s cheek point-lined in indigo.
All amazed I stood there. How should I make questionings?
Dumb the rocks around me, silent the precipice.
Voices lost, where these dwelt who at dawn abandoning tent and
thorn-bush fencing fled to the wilderness.
Now thy sad heart acheth, grieveth loud remembering girls how
closely howdahed, awned with what canopies.
Every howdah curtained, lined with gauze embroideries, figured
with festoons hung red from the pole of it.
Trooped they there the maid-folk, wild white cows of Túdiha, ay,
or does of Wújra, long-necked, or their fawns with them,
Fled as the mirage flees, fills the vale of Bíshata, fills the tree-clad
wádies, íthel and rock-mazes.
What of her, Nowára, thy lost love, who fled from thee, every
heart-link sundered, close loop and free fetter!
Hers the Mórra camp-fires lit how far in Fáïda, in Hejáz what
marches! How shalt thou win to her?
Eastward move they marching, to Muhájjer wandering camped
in Tái, in Férda, ay in Rukhám of it.
Southward on to Yémen, to Sowéyk their sojournings, to Wahéf
el Kahri, ay, and Tilkhám of it.
Man, have done! Forget her, – one too far to comfort thee! Who
would his love garner first let him sunder it.
Shed the love that fails thee. Strong be thou, and break with her.
Keep thy gifts for friendship, freed from thy wilderment.
Mount thee on thy nága. Travel-trained and hard she is, low her
back with leanness, lessened with hump of her;
Shrunk her sides and wasted, jaded with long journeyings, spare
as her hide shoe-straps frayed by her road-faring.
Light she to her halter, to thy hand that guideth her, as a red
cloud southwards loosed from its rain-burden.
Nay a fair wild-ass she; at her side the white-flanked one, he the
scarred ass-stallion, bitten and struck for her.
Climbed they two the hill-top, he the bite-scarred ass-tyrant her
new mood resenting, being in foal to him.
On the crags high posted watched he from Thálabut all the plain
to guard her, ambushes laid for her.
Six months of Jumáda wandered have they waterless, browsing
the moist herbage, he her high sentinel.
Till returned their thirsting, need of the far water clefts, all their
will to win there speeding them waterwards.
What though with heels wounded, still the hot wind driveth
them, as a furnace burning, fire-scorched the breath of it.
In their trail a dust-cloud, like a smoke it wavereth, like a fire
new-lighted, kindling the flame of it,
Flame fanned by the North-wind, green wood mixed with dry
fuel, smoke aloft high curling. So is the dust of them.
He, when her pace slackened, pushed her still in front of him.
Nay, she might not falter, tyrant he urged her on,
Till they reached the streamlet, plunged and slaked their thirst in
it, a spring welling over, crest-high the reeds of it;
All its banks a cane-brake, thick with stems o’ershadowing; bent
are some, some standing, night-deep the shade of them.
Say is this her likeness? Or a wild cow wolf-raided of her sweet
calf loitering, she is the van of them.
She, the short-nosed, missed it. Lows she now unendingly, roams
the rocks, the sand-drifts, mourning and bellowing,
Lows in rage beholding that white shape, the limbs of it, dragged
by the grey wolf-cubs, – who shall their hunger stay?
Theirs the chance to seize it, hers the short forgetfulness. Death is
no mean archer. Mark how his arrows hit.
Stopped she then at night-fall, while the rain in long furrows
scored the bush-grown hill-slopes, ceaseless the drip of it,
Dripped on her dark back-line, poured abroad abundantly: not a
star the heaven showed, cloud-hung the pall of it;
One tree all her shelter, standing broad-branched, separate at the
sand-hills’ edge-line, steep-set the sides of them.
She, the white cow, shone there through the dark night luminous,
like a pearl of deep-seas, freed from the string of it.
Thus till morn, till day-dawn folded back night’s canopy; then she
fled bewildered, sliding the feet of her,
Fled through the rain lakelets, to the pool of Suwáyada, all a
seven nights’ fasting twinned with the days of them,
Till despaired she wholly, till her udder milk-stricken shrank, so
full to feed him suckling or weaning him.
Voices now she hears near, human tones, they startle her, though
to her eye naught is: Man! He, the bane of her!
Seeketh a safe issue, the forenoon through listening, now in
front, behind now, fearing her enemy.
And they failed, the archers. Loosed they then to deal with her
fine-trained hounds, the lop-eared, slender the sides of them.
These outran her lightly. Turned she swift her horns on them, like
twin spears of Sámhar, sharp-set the points of them.
Well she knew her danger, knew if her fence failed with them
hers must be the red death. Hence her wrath’s strategy.
And she slew Kasábi, foremost hound of all of them, stretched
the brach in blood there, ay, and Sukhám of them.
Thus is she, my nága. When at noon the plains quiver and the
hills dance sun-steeped, cloaked in the heat-tremors,
Ride I and my deeds do, nor forbear from wantoning, lest the
fools should shame me, blame me the fault-finders.
Do not thou misprize me, thou Nowára. One am I binder of all
love-knots, ay, and love’s surrender;
One who when love fails him, wails not long but flies from it;
one whom one alone holds, hard death the hinderer.
What dost thou of mirth know, glorious nights, ah, how many—
cold nor heat might mar them—spent in good company?
Came I thus discoursing to his sign, the wine-seller’s drank at the
flag-hoisting, drank till the wine grew dear,
Bidding up each full skin, – black with age the brand of it,
pouring forth the tarred jars, breaking the seals of them;
Pure deep draughts of morning, while she played, the sweet
singer fingering the lute-strings, showing her skill to me.
Ere the cock had crowed once, a first cup was quaffed by me: ere
slow man had stretched him, gone was the second cup.
On what dawns sharp-winded clothed have I the cold with it,
dawns that held the North-wind reined in the hands of them.
Well have I my tribe served, brought them aid and armament,
slept, my mare’s reins round me, night-long their sentinel;
Ridden forth at day-dawn, climbed the high-heaped sand-ridges
hard by the foe’s marches, dun-red the slopes of them;
Watched till the red sun dipped hand-like in obscurity, till the
night lay curtained, shrouding our weaknesses;
And I came down riding, my mare’s neck held loftily as a palm
fruit-laden, – woe to the gatherer!
Swift was she, an ostrich; galloped she how wrathfully, from her
sides the sweat streamed, lightening the ribs of her;
Strained on her saddle; dripped with wet the neck of her, the
white foam-flakes wreathing, edging the girth of her;
Thrusteth her neck forward, shaketh her reins galloping; flieth as
the doves fly bound for the water-springs.
At the King’s Court strangers thronged from what far provinces,
each athirst for bounty, fearing indignity.
Stiff-necked they as lions in their hate, the pride of them, came
with stubborn proud feet, Jinns of the wilderness.
Stopped I their vain boastings, took no ill-tongued words from
them, let them not take licence. What were their chiefs to me?
I was provided camels for their slaughtering, I who their shares
portioned, drawing the lots for them.
Every mouth I feasted. Barren mount and milch-camel slew I for
all daily. All shared the meat of them.
Far guest and near neighbour, every man rose satisfied, full as in
Tebála, fed as in green valleys.
Ay, the poor my tent filled, thin poor souls like sick-camels, nágas
at a tomb tied, bare-backed, no shirt on them.
Loud the winter winds howled; piled we high the meat-dishes;
flowed the streams of fatness, feeding the fatherless.
Thus the tribes were trysted; nor failed we the provident to name
one, a wise man, fair-tongued, as judge for them,
One who the spoil portioned, gave to each his just measure, spake
to all unfearing, gave or refused to give,
A just judge, a tribe-sheykh, wise, fair-worded, bountiful, sweet
of face to all men, feared by the warriors.
Noble we; our fathers wielded power bequeathed to them, dealt
law to the nations, each tribe its lawgiver.
All our lineage faultless, no light words our promises; not for us
the vain thoughts, passions of common men.
Thou fool foe, take warning, whatso the Lord portioneth hold it
a gift granted, dealt thee in equity.
Loyalty our gift was, faith unstained our heritage; these fair
things He gave us, He the distributor.
For for us a mansion built He, brave the height of it lodged
therein our old men, ay, and the youths of us,
All that bore our burdens, all in our tribe’s sore sorrow, all that
were our horsemen, all our high councillors.
Like the Spring are these men, joy to them that wait on them, to
the weak, the widows, towers in adversity.
Thus our kin stands faith-firm, purged of tribe-malingerers. Woe
be to all false friends! Woe to the envious!
Translated by Lady Anne Blunt and Wilfried S. Blunt2
Su’ád is gone, and to-day my heart is love-sick, in thrall to her,
unrequited, bound with chains;
And Su’ád, when she came forth on the morn of departure, was
but as a gazelle with bright black downcast eyes.
When she smiles, she lays bare a shining row of side-teeth that
seems to have been bathed once and twice in (fragrant) wine—
Wine mixed with pure cold water from a pebbly hollow where
the north-wind blows, in a bend of the valley,
From which the winds drive away every speck of dust, and
it brims over with white-foamed torrents fed by showers gushing from a cloud of morn.
Oh, what a rare mistress were she, if only she were true to her
promise and would hearken to good advice!
But hers is a love in whose blood are mingled paining and lying
and faithlessness and inconstancy.
She is not stable in her affection—even as ghouls change the hues
of their garments—
And she does not hold to her plighted word otherwise than as
sieves hold water.
The promises of ‘Urkúb were a parable of her, and his promises
were naught but vanity.
I hope and expect that women will ever be ready to keep their
word; but never, methinks, are they ready.
Let not the wishes she inspired and the promises she made
beguile thee: lo, these wishes and dreams are a delusion.
In the evening Su’ád came to a land whither none is brought save
by camels that are excellent and noble and fleet.
To bring him there, he wants a stout she-camel which, though
fatigued, loses not her wonted speed and pace;
One that largely bedews the bone behind her ear when she
sweats, one that sets herself to cross a trackless unknown wilderness;
Scanning the high grounds with eyes keen as those of a solitary
white oryx, when stony levels and sand-hills are kindled (by the sun);
Big in the neck, fleshy in the hock, surpassing in her make the
other daughters of the sire;
Thick-necked, full-cheeked, robust, male-like, her flanks wide,
her front (tall) as a milestone;
Whose tortoise-shell skin is not pierced at last even by a lean
(hungry) tick on the outside of her back;
A hardy beast whose brother is her sire by a noble dam, and her
sire’s brother is her dam’s brother; a long-necked one and nimble.
The kurád crawls over her: then her smooth breast and flanks cause
it to slip off.
Onager-like is she; her side slabbed with firm flesh, her elbow-
joint far removed from the ribs;
Her nose aquiline; in her generous ears are signs of breeding plain
for the expert to see, and in her cheeks smoothness.
Her muzzle juts out from her eyes and throat, as though it were a
pick-axe.
She lets a tail like a leafless palm-branch with small tufts of hair
hang down over a sharp-edged (unrounded) udder from which its teats do not take away (milk) little by little.
Though she be not trying, she races along on light slender feet
that skim the ground as they fall,
With tawny hock-tendons—feet that leave the gravel scattered
and are not shod so that they should be kept safe from blackness of the heaped stones.
The swift movement of her forelegs, when she sweats and the
mirage enfolds the hills—
On a day when the chameleon basks in some high spot until its
exposed part is baked as in fire,
And, the grey cicalas having begun to hop on the gravel, the
camel-driver bids his companions take the siesta—
Resembles the beating of hand on hand by a bereaved grey-haired
woman who rises to lament and is answered by those who have lost many a child,
One wailing shrilly, her arms weak, who had no understanding
when news was brought of the death of her unwedded son:
She tears her breast with her hands, while her tunic is rent in
pieces from her collar-bones.
The fools walk on both sides of my camel, saying, “Verily, O
grandson of Abú Sulmá, thou art as good as slain”;
And every friend of whom I was hopeful said, “I will not help
thee out: I am too busy to mind thee.”
I said, “Let me go my way, may ye have no father! For whatever
the Merciful hath decreed shall be done.
Every son of woman, long though his safety be, one day is borne
upon a gibbous bier.”
I was told that the Messenger of Allah threatened me (with
death), but with the Messenger of Allah I have hope of finding pardon.
Gently! Mayst thou be guided by Him who gave thee the gift of
the Qur’an, wherein are warnings and a plain setting-out (of
the matter).
Do not punish me, when I have not sinned, on account of what
is said by the informers, even should the (false) sayings about
me be many.
Ay, I stand in such a place that if an elephant stood there, seeing
(what I see) and hearing what I hear,
The sides of his neck would be shaken with terror—if there be no
forgiveness from the Messenger of Allah.
I did not cease to cross the desert, plunging betimes into the
darkness when the mantle of Night is fallen,
Till I laid my right hand, not to withdraw it, in the hand of the
avenger whose word is the word of truth.
For indeed he is more feared by me when I speak to him—and
they told me I should be asked of my lineage—
Than a lion of a jungle, one whose lair is amidst dense thickets in
the lowland of ‘Aththar;
He goes in the morning to feed two cubs, whose victual is human
flesh rolled in the dust and torn to pieces;
When he springs on his adversary, ’tis against his law that he
should leave the adversary ere he is broken;
From him the asses of the broad dale flee in affright, and men do
not walk in his wadi,
Albeit ever in his wadi is a trusty fere, his armour and hard-worn
raiment smeared with blood—ready to be devoured.
Truly the Messenger is a light whence illumination is sought—a
drawn Indian sword, one of the swords of Allah,
Amongst a band of Kuraish, whose spokesman said when they
professed Islam in the valley of Mecca, “Depart ye!”
They departed, but no weaklings were they or shieldless in battle
or without weapons and courage;
They march like splendid camels and defend themselves with
blows when the short black men take to flight;
Warriors with noses high and straight, clad for the fray in mail-
coats of David’s weaving,
Bright, ample, with pierced rings strung together like the rings of
the kaf’á.
They are not exultant if their spears overtake an enemy or apt to
despair if they be themselves overtaken.
The spear-thrust falls not but on their throats: for them there is
no shrinking from the ponds of death.
Translated by R. A. Nicholson3
The care-free sleeps, but I feel no sleep come nigh to mine eyes:
Care is my fellow, at hand always to pillow my head.
It is not sickness, ’tis Care that thus wasted my frame:
Care fills my vision, and grips my fainting heart with its pain.
A heavy burthen it is, whereso I venture my steps,
There rises ever in face a barrier not to be passed;
No way lies open to me between Iraq and Murād—
Not even where the wide torrent stretches broadly its bed.
Yea, surely well do I know, and need no lesson from thee,
The path I travel was traced for those who bear forth the dead.
Death and Destruction have climbed atop of cliffs where I wend,
And watch my shape as I totter (though the narrowing pass);
No wealth of mine, whether old or newly got, shall redeem
The pledge they hold of me—nought but life itself shall avail.
What can I hope, when Muḥarriq’s house have gone to decay
And left their palaces void? What better, after Iyād?—
The folk who dwelt in Khawarnaq and Bāriq and as-Sadīr,
And the high-pinnacled castle that stood beside Sindād—
A land which Ka’b son of Māmah chose and Abū Du’ād
To be the place where their fathers’ stock should prosper and grow.
Now sweep the winds over all their dwellings: empty they lie,
As though their lords had been set a time and no more to be.
Yea, once they lived there a life most ample in wealth and delight
Beneath the shade of a kingdom stable, not to be moved.
They settled after in Anqirah, and there by their stead
Flowed down Euphrates, new come to plain from mountain and hill.
Lo! How luxurious living and all the ways of delight
Decline one day to decay, and pass therefrom into nought!
And if thou seekest examples, look at Gharf and his house:
In them shalt thou, if it list thee, many find to thy hand.
What hope for us after Zaid whose kin were lost for a maid,
Scattered and banished and slain, for all their goodly array?
They chose the broad open land because of strength that they
had,
And best of helpers were they beyond all bountiful hands.
If now thou seest me a wreck, worn out and diminished of sight,
And all my limbs without strength to bear my body along,
And I am deaf to the calls of love and lightness of youth,
And follow wisdom in meekness, my steps easy to guide—
Time was I went every night, hair combed, to sellers of wine,
And squandered lightly my wealth, compliant, easy of mood.
Yea, once I played, and enjoyed the sweetest flavour of youth,
My wine the first of the grape, mingled with purest of rain—
Wine brought from one with a twang in his speech, and rings in
his ears,
A belt girt round him: he brought it forth for good silver coin.
A boy deals it to our guests, girt up, two pearls in his ears,
His fingers ruddy, as though stained deep with mulberry juice,
And women white like the moon or statues stately to see,
That softly carry around great cups filled full with the wine—
White women, dainty, that shoot the hearts of men (with their eyes),
Fair as a nest full of ostrich eggs betwixt rock and sand.
Kind words they speak, and their limbs are soft and smooth to the touch,
Their faces bright, and their hearts to lovers gentle and mild.
Low speech they murmur, in tones that bear no secrets abroad:
They gain their ends without toil, and need no shouting to win.
Yea, oft at dawn would I ride afar in dangerous meads—
Dark grasses clothing the runnels, joyful sight for the herds;
Thereon the clouds of the night had loosed their burthens, and clumps
Of ṣafrā, juicy and fresh, and zubbād, thickened the grass,
In Jaww and al-Amarāt, around Mughāmir’s sides,
And Ḍārij, and Qaṣīmah, choicest land for the chase:
My mount a steed, ever prompt to yield the whole of its speed
To ride the wildings to bay, a racer not to be beat;
The lonely bull that exults in fleetness he courses down
By running skilful in turns, now swift, now slackened as meet.
And oft have I followed after friends departing, my beast
A stout she-camel, well-knit, that yields not calves nor milk,
Strong as a wild-ass: the Spring has filled the chinks of her frame—
Smooth now the surface, whereon no tick can find room to lodge.
All these—it boots not to tell of things so utterly gone:
Time’s work is nought but to turn all lovely things to decay!
Translated by C. J. Lyall4
What have we done to you, death
that you treat us so,
with always another catch
one day a warrior
the next a head of state;
charmed by the loyal
you choose the best.
Iniquitous, unequalling death
I would not complain
if you were just
but you take the worthy
leaving fools for us.
Fifty years among us
upholding rights
annulling wrongs,
impatient death
could you not wait
a little longer.
He still would be here
and mine, a brother
without a flaw. Peace
be upon him and Spring
rains water his tomb
but
could you not wait
a little longer
a little longer,
you came too soon.
Translated by Omar Pound5
A foolish man rides here
with my saddle
and on my camel.
Translated by Omar Pound6
Oh, that youth’s flower anew might lift its head
And return to us, Buthaina, the time that fled!
And oh, might we bide again as we used to be
When thy folk dwelt nigh and grudged what thou gavest me!
Shall I ever meet Buthaina alone again,
Each of us full of love as a cloud of rain?
Fast in her net was I when a lad, and till
This day my love is growing and waxing still.
I have spent my lifetime waiting for her to speak,
And the bloom of youth is faded from off my cheek;
But I will not suffer that she my suit deny,
My love remains undying, tho’ all things die.
Translated by R. A. Nicholson7
I said to her when she fled in amaze and breathless
before the array of battle—Why dost thou tremble?
Yea, if but a day of life thou shouldst beg with weeping
beyond what thy doom appoints, thou wouldst not gain it.
Be still then, and face the onset of death, high-hearted,
for none upon earth shall win to abide forever.
No raiment of praise the cloak of old age and weakness:
none such for the coward who bows like a reed in a tempest.
The pathway of death is set for all men to travel:
the crier of death proclaims through the earth his empire.
Who dies not when young and sound dies old and weary,
cut off in his length of days from all love and kindness;
And what for a man is left of delight in living,
past use, flung away, a worthless worn-out chattel?
Translated by C. J. Lyall8
Blame me no more, O comrades! but to-day
quietly with me beside the howdahs stay.
Blame not my love for Zaynab, for to her
And hers my heart is pledged a prisoner.
Ah, can I ever think of how we met
Once at al-Khayf, and feel no fond regret?
My song of other women was but jest.
She reigns alone, eclipsing all the rest
Hers is my love sincere, ’tis she the flame
Of passion kindles—so, a truce to blame!
Translated by R. A. Nicholson9