English
In Praise of Ali, Commander of the Faithful
Your ruby lips outshine pearls when you speak; that vein of salt grows sweeter than sugar when you smile.
I love your heart more than my own life, yet fortune never grants me the chance to hold you close.
Whenever I gazed into the mirror without your face, the glass turned golden on me like the sun, blank and cold.
Among lovers whose lives are in disarray, who but your curling locks has ever dared embrace your waist?
Your love fears none of reason's spells; no one stops fate's arrow with a shield.
From the chain of burnt and scattered hearts, only your beauty mark has fallen, scorched, into your embrace.
Who has looked at you and not seen, from sheer shyness, dewy sweat draw a rose petal across your face?
Each drop of my tears is a whole sea twisted upon itself; what storm lies hidden behind these wet eyes?
If a flame leaps, smoke rises from this fire temple; my heart is a hell coiled in scrolls of sparks.
Strangely, our ruin received word of repair: it is a flood that has crashed against the walls and door.
People crowd to look on you, but barely open their eyes; nothing of you can fit within their sight.
I close my eyes when I see your beautiful face, so I can hold your image whole within my gaze.
I fear I would melt to water if I came near you, like a dewdrop on a fresh, moist rose.
The mirror gathered wondrous roses from your reflection, heaping rose upon rose across its breast and embrace.
The sigh I breathed at dawn in memory of you turned my soul into another sky entirely.
The brand I set on my liver out of love for you became a new sun rising over the realm of my heart.
I am the wound that leaves no mark on your hard heart; let this lament, steeped in blood, leave its trace at last.
Plunder has spread to Tartary from your two eyes; uproar has reached the Berbers from your two tresses.
My eyelashes promise a rain of tears as long as the down on your cheek circles it like a halo around the moon.
See the mark of sorrow's slap on my sallow face; no one ever stamped a coin on gold more finely than this.
A lover's letter of grief cannot be given to a dove; no one has ever entrusted a flame to a feather.
What has a lover to do with order and peace? Out of pain for you I have wound myself onto the road of travel.
Thinking of your hair will end in madness; may no one let this smoke coil into their heart.
The heart must not be surrendered to scattered desires; better to steer the ship clear of this contrary wind.
The heart's cargo can rest at the shore no longer; knowingly cast the skiff of being into danger.
Pleasure has set a strange snare along your path; if you are a man of grief, carry your soul out of this abyss.
Khosrow has won Shirin's sweet lips to his heart's desire; tell any new Farhad not to dash his head against the mountain.
Sweeter to me than Jamshid's throne and the crown of kings is any handful of dust I can scatter on my head.
The dust I can pour on my head is the dust of the sacred precinct, whose splendor turns the very blood in a pearl to water with envy.
The dust of the shrine, that pure garden whose soil the angels draw across their eyes like kohl of hope.
Longing for the dust of that place, which shames even paradise, one could not bear to settle in Eden's garden itself.
The court of the king of both worlds, so exalted that the heavens cannot even rise into its view.
That king whose command is destiny, whose equal no likeness has ever shown in the mirror of worth.
A king the whole community needs for its very existence, as matter needs form to take its shape.
If the throne of his kingship were brought into view, the nine heavens would lie beneath it, and he above all.
The guide of guidance, Lion of God, King of sanctity, who surpasses all souls and horizons in grace and skill.
Praiser of the Prophet in both his deeds and his words, himself praised by God in the verses and chapters of the Quran.
Best of all creation, for after the Prophet there is no man of God like him among angels, jinn, or humankind.
In the substance of his sword lies a hidden flame that sends the enemy's soul as kindling into hell.
In his swift horseshoes hides a fire that consumes the foe's body to the very core.
That bold, fairy faced one who finds no rest until the pupil of his eye draws people close within his gaze.
His dust can be seen only on the battle line, where the bride of victory uses it as kohl for her eyes.
Wherever he goes, the eye of triumph follows his tracks, until, like a lover, it draws him close in embrace.
The iron of his horseshoe sparks at every strike; if the foe takes shelter in stone, the sparks find him there.
Who can hold firm against the fury of his charge? Even a mountain, as his foe, is cut down to its waist.
I cannot describe the speed of his march; the pen splinters at its head before I can write it.
On the ruled lines of the page, the letters of his haste flash like lightning piercing through the veins of a cloud.
With his two pronged blade he would seize all horizons, even if the whole world were sword, spear, and shield.
He would tear up the very roots of the thornbush of unbelief, even if its roots ran deep into solid rock.
If his dread cry reaches back to eternity past, you would see his arm around the waist of eternity to come.
Against his charge what is a mountain that does not crumble, when no one can tie even a hair around mountain or hill?
Whether Rostam son of Zal or Sam son of Nariman, before him they are mere straw scattered by a storm.
Islam grew strong armed only because he guarded its egg with the single grip of his two edged sword.
The splendor that the gate of Khaybar saw in his hand, even the disk of a shield could hardly show on its palm.
Son in law, cousin, and brother, who but he stands beside the chief of prophets in perfection and skill?
Who but he should sit in the Prophet's place? The sun's seat befits none but the moon.
An essence that was the Prophet's cousin and his brother, with the realm of holy souls bound in service at his waist.
First of all to embrace Islam, foremost of all in the heights of human perfection.
Kinship, precedence, and surpassing excellence, all of it attested in the Quran and in the traditions.
Could anyone, in the end, claim precedence over such an essence? A curse upon Abu Bakr, Uthman, and Umar.
My king, you are that lord of the world before whom both worlds, against the field of your glory, are like Shimr beside an ocean.
If reason set out to measure your grandeur, it would be stranded forever on the battlements of the throne.
The wings of thought burn away when they try to fly toward the summit of your majesty in the flight of the gaze.
The blistered footprints of those who seek your door scatter across every pathway like the Pleiades.
Lovers of your gate sell their pride even to the heavens, yet for all their humility still rank above the moon's sphere.
This rank cannot be set even beside the sun; when would they trade the gold pallor of their cheeks for mere gold?
While I serve you, why should I complain of the heavens' cruelty? From the tyranny of rivals there is no escape.
For a lifetime I have been the world's giver through your grace, just as ruby and pearl shine by the light of the sun.
I am the slave of the slave whose master is you; I am the dust of that street where even your dog walks.
Qanbar will gain no advantage over me on Judgment Day; how can the quenched compare to the thirsty? Carry word of my lament.
No one could tell your love apart from my very being, like milk that has been blended with sugar.
Though my heart is thinner and clearer than a mirror, your love is set in it like an inscription carved in stone.
When my eye, parted from your door, sheds tears like a sea, you would think the very ocean had crashed into the Berber coast.
As long as the realm of the possible is not free of gain and loss, as long as all that exists turns toward good and evil.
May good turn to evil for the one who wishes you ill, and may the one who wishes you well see only gain from every loss.