English
In Praise of Ali, Commander of the Faithful
When the martyr of your love recalls your face, his spirit trembles;
when he imagines your arrow, his very bones shake.
Until the one sick with love for you is worn out by pain,
death comes to his bedside meaning to take his life, and trembles.
If you pass haughtily by the dust of one you have slain,
longing brings his feeble soul back to life, and it trembles.
The one killed by your glance, undone by the cruelty of your nature,
his last breath leaves his throbbing body, and trembles.
So agitated, his soul leaves the body and settles
ashamed on the branch of the lote tree, the soul of the slain, and trembles.
The line of your glance reaches the eye disturbed,
like a thief who finds the watchman, and trembles.
Your sorrow, parted from my heart, is restless like my own heart,
like a bird that has lost its nest, and trembles.
Your sorrow left my heart and grew lonely, beside itself,
like a traveler the caravan abandons, who trembles.
Since I am head to foot full of the wounds of his blade,
my heart, out of dread, recalls his eyebrows, and trembles.
When his glance draws the sword of cruelty from its sheath,
death, in fear, grips the reins, and trembles.
My longing wants to paint, with the pen of regret in hand,
the thought of a kiss traces a picture on his lips, and trembles.
How can I draw on my heart the thought of kissing those lips,
when my lips, even saying the name of his threshold, tremble?
How can I bring my two bold hands to that slender waist,
when even his hair, dazzled, reaches for that waist and trembles?
Mani could not imagine it with any pen, yet
he would try to draw the shape of that mouth on a speck of dust, and tremble.
He has cast me so low, that unbeliever, that in fear of him
the heavens call me the dust of his threshold, and tremble.
He cast a glance toward me and I grew anxious with dread,
like a sacrifice that sees the intent to take its life, and trembles.
Just as my heart, from the cruelties of that ill-tempered tyrant,
gives the point of his arrow a place in its eye, and trembles.
It is fitting now that I bring my complaint of his sorrow to a court
whose mere mention makes the aged sky recall its trial, and tremble.
Exalted Ali, before whose shame at any rudeness
the heavens draw the dust of his threshold across their eyes, and tremble.
A king of lofty rank, so high in worth
that the sky begs greatness at his threshold, and trembles.
The sanctuary of his shrine is a garden worthy of his glory,
so that the sky, naming it the garden of paradise, trembles.
The least lane of his city of majesty is a road such that
reason, naming it the Milky Way, trembles.
To host his servants, fate, out of embarrassment,
sends the satin of the sky to serve as his tablecloth, and trembles.
If intellect were admitted to the school of his refinement,
like a child it would take the tablet in hand from his fingers, and tremble.
On the battlefield that lion-feller wields a blade
so fierce the sun recalls his blood-spilling sword, and trembles.
If the sun likened his blade to a wave,
in fear of the water all its bones would turn liquid, and tremble.
When the wind of his wrath sweeps gloriously into battle,
his enemies' limbs become like a wet willow, and tremble.
When the fire of his anger flares up for vengeance,
the earth leaps from its place like a wild rue seed, and trembles.
Before the might of his glory the enemy's bones are mere straw and chaff;
in fear of his vengeance the smoke of their soul rises, and trembles.
The steed of his swift life is so fierce, unruly and bold
that it sends the moon as its horseshoe up the sky, which trembles.
When the earth quakes under his horse's hard hooves,
it leaps in courtesy to kiss his reins, and trembles.
When time wishes, at the moment of his gallop, to fall in at his stirrup,
from running its very life reaches its lips, and trembles.
When his speed leaves the highest heaven behind in the dust,
his age stumbles after in two steps of his charger, and trembles.
The sky shakes over him like smoke over a flame;
when he rides hard, its bones one by one tremble.
From another opening my page is filled with light,
for the sun swears by his soul, and trembles.