English
In Praise, Describing the Flowers
How wonderful: with your face the garden rains roses; your cheek is the rosy glow that colors the flowerbed.
The curl of your hair has broken the hyacinth's spirit; the beauty of your face has laid a thorn in the garden's path.
Did you perhaps pass through the rose garden last night, that its very doors and walls are laughing today?
As your promise grew weak, once and now, and your anger grew sharp, so the garden's market flourished.
Where is the morning breeze, that with its sickly frame kept struggling with all its soul to nurse the garden?
When it caught the scent of your hair and the color of your cheek, at once it grew faint and slack in its labor.
The garden would have been a ruin if the master's grace had not, like the breeze, rebuilt it.
If you have seen a graceful cypress-tall beloved, then look at the stature of that painted cypress.
A robe of grace is draped over the cypress's height, but without you, who cares for a cypress at all?
If you appear before the eye, there is good reason: the cypress finds its place along the flowing stream.
For its uprightness the cypress resembles your form; that is why my heart is mad with longing for the cypress.
Since your stature has set the cypress free, why should I call your height the cypress's equal?
Perhaps the narcissus drank a toast to your stature, that it lies drunk and fallen at the cypress's foot.
The whole face of the earth is blossom; everything beneath the sky is the cypress's height.
Since the master's will inclines toward what is lofty, that is why my nature so seeks out the cypress.
The plane tree, with all its soul, is a devotee of spring, since the hand of bounty is open wide upon the plane tree.
So freely does the violet spill from your hair, so freely does it rise from your rose-petal cheek.
The world has grown narrow, like your small mouth, so that the violet may cling to your ruby lips.
This is the food of your languid narcissus eye: the violet mingling itself with sugar.
What magic is in your weary eyes, that they raise a violet up out of fire?
Why has your hair turned its head away from your face? Perhaps the violet is shying away from the tulip.
The violet twists its foot back from the trace of your down, as though fleeing the garden.
The tip of your curl is like the nib of the master's pen, that scatters violet ink over camphor.
The bud packed its arrowhead with the fire of longing, so the water lily cast its shield upon the water.
The smiling lips of the bud give people a sign of the bud's own ruined heart.
It came in fresh-faced and opened its cloak; bravo, a hundred blessings on the soul of the bud!
Now in a single breath the New Year's breeze will reveal all that the bud has hidden.
Perhaps the tulip opened its mouth so that it might take the bud's small breast between its lips.
The breeze scattered these ten millet seeds into this pouch of the bud.
With its heart's blood the bud gathered a hundred petals, since the nightingale is coming as its guest.
Like an arrow's notch, from the breath of the master's grace the arrowhead of the bud brimmed over with laughter.
Like me, from love of the beloved's face, the breeze is sometimes a madman and sometimes a sick man.
How lovely: the image of your face upon the rose garden, with your hyacinth hair drawn round the rose.
Your coquetry is no disgrace to you; the rose's hem looks lovelier when it is fresh and moist.
The nightingale's cry and the rose's laughter resemble the two of us: your teasing and my pleading.
Did the rose catch on a sharp thorn, that its shirt was torn open like this?
From afar, at dawn, one can read your green down by the bright lamp of the rose.
From envy of your face and from my cold sighs, the blood has frozen in the rose's body.
Is it from shame of you, or the master's wrath, that fire has flared up from the harvest of the rose?
They all sell either the color of the vine or its scent, and drink their wine, alone, beneath the cypress.
How sweet at dawn the nightingale's song; how sweet the nightingale's flight on the rose branch.
The meadow is such a place of harmony: all rose petals and the nightingale's music.
It is not right, in fairness, to bear the bud's heartache and the nightingale's disdain.
The nightingale's constant friend, at dusk and dawn, is the sound of the harp and the cry of lovers.
The breeze tore the garments of the lily and the rose, and so the nightingale's secret was laid bare.
This rose-dome is delightful, especially when the nightingale's song echoes within it.
I am the nightingale's companion in praising the master; have you ever seen a parrot as the nightingale's partner?
The world sits at the New Year's feast, cup of tulip in hand, in memory of the master.
If the reflection of his judgment falls upon the blossom, the star of the blossom will shine just as bright.
And if it takes shelter in the shade of his hand, every blossom turns golden like the rose.
Like his luminous wisdom, the blossom is born from its mother as a child, yet old.
From his being, the withered tree drinks water and at once blossoms into silver and gold.
From the bounty of his hand, one day like the narcissus the blossom set a crown of gold upon its head.
The breeze held a trace of the dust of his feet, and out of joy it scattered blossoms over its head.
It gave coins and received freshness in return, like the hand of the faith-nurturing chief blossom.
Blessed Rukn al-Din, fortunate of arm, by whom the foundations of the faith were made firm.
If the narcissus took his justice as its rule, it would not come into the meadow drunk.
The narcissus lays its neck upon the dust of his feet, though it is proud with its crown of gold.
The narcissus would do the work of the pupil of his eye if it could see his face from afar.
If the narcissus was once a ruin in these times, it has now been made rich with silver and gold.
If the narcissus saw the vision of his judgment in a dream, it would wake with bright, radiant eyes.
It is no wonder if, for the sake of his inkwell, the narcissus turns black like a houri's eye.
In the days of his justice, the narcissus dares not even glance at the veiled bud.
How glorious the chronicle of your reign's fortune; blessed be to you the season of early spring.
In the garden, as soon as the lily opened its mouth, it wore out a hundred tongues in praise of you.
To keep guard for your servants, the lily displayed its watery blade.
Like paper, the lily wiped clean the page of its cheek to receive the writing of your praise.
The meadow made its gold ornament from the flower, for the lily was like the ear of your white steed.
The lily drew up its watery dagger in its hand when it heard the name of your enemy.
The narcissus took collyrium from the dust of your feet; the lily praised your generous hand.
The narcissus gilded its two eyes with gold; the lily coated its tongue with silver.
You thousand-voiced nightingale of the garden of the sacred law, refuge of the people, sultan of the sacred law.
From dread of you the tulip turns to blood within the stone; from shame at your nature the tulip takes on its color.
Fire is subdued by fear of you, and so the tulip holds it in its grasp each moment.
By the blessing of your justice the world has grown so peaceful that the tulip smashes its wine cup against the stone.
Wherever the breeze of your grace has passed, tulips spring up mile after mile.
Though from the fire of longing, like your foe, the tulip keeps a heart dark as smoke,
by the effort of your enlightening mind, it now wipes the rust from the tulip's heart.
First the tulip washed its mouth with musk and wine, then it turned its aim to praising you.
The breeze grew faint before the shame of your grace; the old world was made young by your splendor.
When the New Year rejoiced at your face, it opened the treasure of joy.
One by one, whatever coin of gladness there was, the New Year gave to the nature of your servants.
The New Year delivered the record of its own servitude by the hand of the free-standing lily.
Every day the New Year rubbed the curls of hyacinth and boxwood upon the dust of your threshold.
The world prides itself on fairness, for the New Year learned the code of justice and equity from you.
So long as, each dawn, the New Year gives the rose's harvest to the wind across the plain,
may every moment be autumn to your envier's breath, and every day a fresh New Year to you.
Qawam al-Din, may fortune be your companion; so it is, and so may it always be.
May the exalted one live forever; may his hand be the fountainhead of generous grace.
So that it may never break with the turning of the heavens, may the thread of your soul be twined double with his.
Since his back is made strong by your arm, may his desire be granted like your command.
You are the greater fortune, he the brightest moon; may the two of you be conjoined for years.
May your ill-wisher be kept from every wish, as beauty is forever parted from loyalty.
May the two of you be like light and sun to each other; may the world rest in the shade of your justice.
May the breaths of the true dawn all say Amen to this recited prayer.
May the cord of your lives, in safety, stay joined together until the Day of Resurrection.