English
In Praise of Emad al-Islam Hasan of Khojand
When the musky lock falls across the rose of her cheek, it breaks the back of spring and shatters the glory of the garden.
She roasted my heart on the fire of cruelty just to crush the hopes of her ailing eyes.
I said, my heart is broken with grief. She teased: it is no strange tool, that it should break while in use.
Do you know why hearts are so tight in her days? Because she keeps few and breaks many.
Your heart is hard, my idol, and your servant's heart is fragile; against stone, glass must inevitably break.
Your lock has broken a thousand hearts, and the wonder is that it shatters a hundred more at the stirring of a breeze.
Your lock is a snake that strikes at every liver; blessed be the hand that could crush that snake's head.
Each year the color of your cheek and the scent of your curls break the poor bud's heart and its whole market.
Around your small mouth, that amber lock is like a hundred thousand rings of musk set with a single gem.
Your lock is broken and your promise is false; your resolve to break our pledge is firm and true.
The morning breeze carried a scent of your lock to the garden, and not one bud kept its cloak whole on its body.
Your drunken eyes drove reason mad; look at the sick one who made the sound one sick too.
For the beauty of your face, the down on your cheek is witness enough, though your claim was already true without a witness.
What is this languor, this shattering of your lock and glance? Given all this, the desire for your lovely face is well founded.
My worn heart is so drenched in blood that it cannot be told whether it is broken or whole.
Each dawn the dark-working sky recites its lesson of cruelty upon your twisted lock, and gets it right.
The thought of union with you never came out right for me; from a broken heart no thoughts come out whole.
The arrow your glance drew from its quiver has a barb forged from the water of fire's own flame.
When the rose recalls the reflection of your face, it fills the world with its own scent and hue.
They told the bud it resembled your mouth, and ever since it has gladdened its own heart with this.
Your heart of stone is harder than steel, and your eyes bore even the arrowhead's steel.
They have scratched their faces and cut their tresses from the cruelties she inflicts on rose and boxwood.
No falsehood ever came from the pledge of your stature; so why does it set the cypress free?
The beauties of the garden paraded before your face, and the nightingale cries out at this disgrace.
The lily stretched out its tongue in apology and said: what is our fault? This levity is the wind's doing.
This is the age of the just rule of a vigilant, fortunate lord; it is your glance that sleeps and does injustice.
He is the strong arm of faith and of the community; his very being is composed of spiritual perfections.
When his generosity turned its gaze on the world's affairs, it cast the battle of the poor over silver and gold aside.
In his days the pen grew sharp and eager, and, like a brain-splitting sword, it plunged headlong into its work.
Lordship has fallen at his door like a ring-knocker, for he linked its means together like a chain.
Behold, the rose's brow drips sweat from meeting him; behold, gold sheds its shield before his bounty.
The sugarcane got knotted up because he tied knots into sweetness with his subtle points.
It found a place in the eyes and ears of lover and beloved when it cast itself, gem-like, into the display case of his speech.
The mountain stood firm in service to your dignity, from the day it bound a knot upon its waist.
In the days of your justice the sword is given no water to drink, so, parched, it thrusts its tongue outside.
Your custom is chivalry and your work is striving; you are the pillar of the realm and the support of Islam.
Your pen has reached the peak of wonders; whatever it produces, it produces finer than the last.
It sets foot on the carpet of Rome and paints like China; it lays its head in the black night and brings forth stars.
It stands girded, aimed at the army of miserliness, and each moment brings forth a battalion of black script.
Every shy meaning whose image no one has seen, it brings its head bowed into a curve so you may behold it.
It is a mother standing upright, with clamor and cry; and the wonder is that all it bears are daughters.
When it speaks of the tablet of eternity, how often it brings shame upon the page.
This too is sorcery, for no one ever saw a beard-grower that brought forth such fine down so pleasingly.
If the sea has come to the tip of your blessed finger, do not marvel that it brings forth reeds upon its head.
When the person of skill cultivates itself, it makes the soul of Azod al-Din Hasan the image on the signet.
First wisdom made gold and the world content with you, then made your name the essence of the house of Khojand.
From dread of you the sword's courage turned to water, for fear it might raise the flames of sedition high.
In your reign, whoever does harm even to a hair soon lays his head in the belly, like a razor.
Ever since the creak of your pen laughed at the spearhead, how many taunts your banner has made from that laughter.
Your palm shows such care for people of skill that in fairness no reckoning can count all it has done.
Your giving does not lock the throat of pearls in a case, and your ambition does not shut satin up in bonds.
To hunt down your desires, the world made a lasso out of the mottled rope of time.
Every evening the sky, at the roof-edge of your glory, burned a star as incense on the fire of the twilight glow.
The people of skill have come alive through your cultivation; the free men of the age have become your servants.
May your fame reach everywhere like light; may the world's soul rest in your shade.
May the child of hope, whose food is the milk of chivalry, be raised in the lap of your arts.
May the dust from your steed's hoof be the resting place of your delight, and may both eyes see a musky pillow made of that dust.
May every piece of gold that has come into the scale's eye be drawn up before its eyes by your generosity.
May the water that freshens the gardens of hope run from the spring of the bounty of your fingers.
May the breeze that opens the bud of the heart blow from the hem of your gracious character.
If your grace does not paint rouge upon the tulip, may its blood be split from soaking up the lightning.
As long as breath passes over the mouth of dawn, may your resolve go forward and your survival never end.