بانت سعاد فقلبي اليوم متبول

Su'ad has departed, and today my heart is love-crazed, shackled behind her, captive and un-ransomed.

And on the morning of departure when they set out, Su'ad was none other than a slender, dark-eyed beauty with kohl-rimmed gaze.

Slender-waisted when facing forward, heavy-hipped when turning away, with neither shortness nor height to be complained of.

She reveals, when she smiles, incisors cool and bright as if they were a rain-pool mixed with wine.

Diluted with fresh water from a curving riverbed, clear, lying in an open valley where the evening wind has chilled it.

The winds sweep any dust from it, fed generously by a night-cloud's downpour of bright, cascading rain.

Alas for her as a companion, if only she had kept her promises, or if good counsel were accepted!

But she is a companion whose very blood is mixed with grief, caprice, broken promises, and betrayal.

She never remains in any single state, shifting colors just as the desert ghoul shifts its garments.

And she holds to no bond she claims to keep, except as a sieve holds water.

Her promises became proverbial like the oaths of Uruqb, and her word is nothing but falsehoods.

I keep hoping, praying they might fulfill their promises soon, yet throughout eternity they bring no haste.

Do not let yourself be deceived by what she promised and hoped for, for earthly wishes and dreams are sheer delusion.

Su'ad has settled in a land that none can reach save thoroughbred, noble, swift-footed mounts.

And none shall bring you to her save a powerful she-camel, pressing onward through fatigue with a long, loping stride.

From every beast whose sweat drips freely when heated, whose path crosses featureless wastes where landmarks are lost.

She gazes out across unseen tracts with the watchful eye of a solitary, pale beast when the summer heat scorches stone and sand.

Massive at the neck-ring, tightly bound at the jaw, superior in her creation to ordinary offspring of the stallion.

A lean-flanked beast whose brother and sire come from mixed stock, while her uncle and dam are long-bodied and swift.

The tick walks upon her then slips right off her slippery chest and smooth, taut flanks.

A robust she-camel cast massively in flesh, her elbow forged apart from the stallion-stock's build.

As though what stretches past her eyes and slaughter-notch, from her muzzle to her jaws, were a heavy brick.

She sweeps past like a segmented palm-branch rib, planted firmly in a stock whose crossing never failed.

With an aquiline nose where the connoisseur sees clear nobility, and a smooth expanse across her cheeks.

She trots over uneven ground while overtaking lean mounts whose hooves strike the earth like a millstone.

Dark, skinny travelers leaving the pebbles scattered in heaps, their hooves unprotected by shoes from the sharp mountain peaks.

On a day when the desert lizard stays frantic, as though its sunlit hide were laid over burning coals.

As though the swinging motion of her sweating forelegs, while heat-haze veils the low hills, were weaving dust.

And their camel-driver told the troop, when the pale grasshoppers began to scurry across the gravel: 'Dismount and rest.'

The day stretched out a tall, slender arm, and when she stood up to wail, wretched grieving women answered her.

A wailing woman with loose shoulders, who loses all reason when the criers announce the death of her firstborn son.

She tears at her breast with both hands while her tunic is split into ragged strips around her collarbones.

The gossips run along her flanks, saying, 'Verily, O son of Abu Sulma, you are a dead man.'

Every companion I relied upon declared, 'I will have nothing to do with you; I am fully occupied with my own safety.'

So I told them: 'Clear my path, bad luck to you all! Every single thing the Merciful has decreed will come to pass.'

Every son of woman, though his safety be prolonged, must one day be carried upon a curved wooden bier.

Word reached me that the Messenger of God had threatened me, yet forgiveness is hoped for at the hands of God's Messenger.

Go slowly, may the One who gave you the noble Quran—wherein lie warnings and clear details—guide your steps!

Do not take me to task for the tales of the gossips when I have committed no crime, though many falsehoods have been spread about me.

Truly I stand in a place where, if an elephant stood to see and hear what I do, even it would tremble—

It would remain shaking with fear unless granted a special gift of grace and permission by the Messenger.

I continued cutting across the desert waste, wrapping myself in the gathering dark while the cloak of night was lowered.

Until I placed my right hand—resisting not—into the palm of one formidable in vengeance, whose word is the final word.

To me he seemed even more awe-inspiring when I spoke to him, and they told me: 'You are tested and questioned.'

Before a fierce lion from the predatory thickets of 'Aththar, where lair is piled upon lair.

He goes forth each morning to strike down two brave lions whose daily food is torn scraps of human flesh dusted with earth.

This lion engages a rival peer, never leaving his opponent until he has left him thoroughly shattered.

Because of him, wild mountain gazelles stay lean with fear, and ordinary foot soldiers dare not tread his valley.

And within his valley there is always some trusted companion whose scattered garments and worn-out rags have been devoured.

Verily the Messenger is a shining sword from which light is drawn—an Indian blade unsheathed from the swords of God.

Among a band of Quraysh whose spokesman declared in the heart of Mecca when they embraced Islam: 'Move away.'

They moved away, yet they were neither cowards nor weaklings when meeting the enemy, nor hesitant nor unarmed.

High-nosed champions whose battle-garments are coats of chainmail woven in the looms of David for the heat of war.

Bright, long coats of mail whose interlocking rings are twisted together tightly like the shell of a land snail.

They march with the stride of glorious camels, protected by fierce blows when the cowardly, short men turn and flee.

They do not rejoice when their spears strike down a tribe, nor do they despair when they themselves are struck.

No spear-thrust ever lands save in their chests; they harbor no hesitation when facing the watering-places of death.