The Horse

My moon-faced love decided to go hunting and said: 'Rise, boy, and saddle the horse.' I said: 'You are well drunk and hungover from wine; what do you want with a horse in this state?' He tried again and said: 'To hunt partridge, I want to race the horse a while across the hills.' You would think the horse was made for his foot and stirrup, restless as his hair in the blowing wind. Like lightning, like Buraq, the horse flew through the air, out of longing for that silver-cheeked beauty. A hundred souls were prey to the talons of his two locks, while he spurred the horse beneath his thigh for the hunt. He rode on, and reason kept calling after him: 'For your servant's sake, hold the horse a moment.' He did not hear these words and rode on like victory itself, holding the horse in the stirrup of the lord and chief of the age. The just one, the light of state and faith, who in every battle hurls his horse against a hundred riders. A warrior who, when he raises the sword of vengeance among the Persians, makes the enemy's horse flee all the way to Zanzibar. By his hand, generosity has become famous through his gifts, and only the riderless horse remains as a keepsake of his foe in battle. O hero who, in pursuit of the enemies' lives, makes their very horses give up the ghost on the day of your charge. In the smoke of your rival's grief, his horse vanishes just as a horse disappears into the dust of a full gallop. Even if sparks from the fire of battle reach the sky, you drive your horse through the flames like Siyavash. On the day when your horse grows restless with the joy of war, beneath you it blazes like burning fire from your blade. When the champions and brave men of both ranks clash, their horses stay alive like Rustam and Isfandiyar. In that moment you strike into the enemy's line and with a single sword you cut down a thousand horses at once. Your horse turns into an elephant before the foe, and here it is fitting that a horse should move like an elephant. Before your sharp sword in battle, the enemy is like a horse before a hungry lion in the meadow. To flee in terror of your sword, the enemy, facing his death, cries: 'Bring me a faster horse.' When did an arrow ever pass by the edge of your fingernail in the moment you drive your horse through the dust? The armored enemy falls in the charge just as a horse collapses helpless from the pain of a hoof abscess. O Lord, on the palace walls of the painter no horse has ever been drawn to match your horse. On the day of battle, Shabdiz, Rakhsh, A'waj, and Yahmum, all four horses stand amazed at its gallop. And if the enemy takes shelter in a fortress out of dread of you, at once you enclose a whole world with your horse. At the gate of your enemy, from fear of your sword, the horse stands forever tail-docked and always despised. My lord, with this ode, which is a true test, it would be right if the horse took pride in it until Judgment Day. Among the people of learning and talent, no famous poet has ever ridden his horse into the field of this refrain. None but me, who tamed my mind to it the way a trainer skillfully breaks a swift-paced horse. But what use is it, when through my bad luck I roam the world forever aimless, like a horse without a bridle. When knowledge is scorned, talent serves no purpose; when the field is narrow, the horse is of no use. As long as a horse takes delight and rejoices by nature, wheeling through the green grass in springtime, May you always live in such a spring of victory that you ride your horse through a tulip field made of your enemy's blood.