English
In Praise of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali
Since you left, like an arrow shot for that lovely idol, I bent my head to my knee like a bow, in the grip of grief.
Mine are such black days that, like a candle through the nights of separation, I scatter handfuls of ash upon my head until dawn.
The wounded prey that is my heart cried out so much in the forest of grief's hawk that it left no peace for the birds of the meadow.
I am in this state, and you, indifferent, never ask why I draw a painful sigh from my chest, moment by moment.
When she heard these words of mine, she smiled under her lips and said: you boast so boldly of love before me.
My skirt is clean, yet these brazen claims of yours will end by accusing me, like Mary falsely accused.
It takes a nightingale to boast of love beside the rose; it takes one who can speak of devotion even in the cold.
Loving has its telltale signs, you simple soul; I see none of them in you, neither more nor less.
Where is your torn collar, where the rip across your chest? Where your pale face, where your bent and broken back?
Where is your longing gaze, where your drunken weeping? Where the frenzy in your head, where the thorn's wound in your foot?
Your throat is not parched, your eyes are not wet; your tears are not warm, your breath is not cold.
A lover's tears should burn warm like the candle of the gathering; a lover's sigh should be cool like the dawn breeze.
I said to her: you whose graceful walk shames the mountain partridge, you for whose languid eyes the sanctuary's gazelle would die.
You, for whose drunken eyes Layla of Arabia is a captive; you, whose sweet crimson lip makes Shirin of Persia a slave.
My eyes, source of floods, have wept so much in your love that now, like a dry cloud, they hold no moisture at all.
It is hopeless for a frozen pearl to yield its moisture; in vain I press my lashes to my eyes, time after time.
Once my cry, from grief for you, burned like lightning; once my eyes, from grief for you, wept like a rain cloud.
From grief's heat, no sigh is left in the space of my chest; from my heart's fever, no moisture is left in my eyes.
You tell me then, you who have grown so distant: with which hand should I tear my chest, or rip open my collar?
Each time my hand falls from your skirt, it draws the arrow of cruelty from my wounded chest.
What shows on my cheek is no natural color; it is my blood-red tears that appear there, again and again.
If I am not distraught, then why this state, my love? If I am not heartsick, then why this, my idol?
My tears surge in waves, my wounds line up rank on rank; the collar of my soul is torn to shreds, the curls of my sighs coil on coil.
If this is not the miracle of love, the spell of passion, then for God's sake, tell bewildered me just once, my idol:
what then is this sea of tears in the stream of my eyes? What then is this mountain of grief in the narrow space of my chest?
You who are familiar with cruelty and a stranger to loyalty, I am sorely afraid of when your tyranny crosses all bounds.
The crimson silk army of my weeping will form its ranks, the lightning of my sigh will raise its banner from my chest.
The blood-thirsty king of love, seeking revenge, draws a double-edged sword of lament from the scabbard of the heart.
But I withdraw, when fear of reason brings me to my senses: God forbid such injustice, God forgive me such cruelty in word.
In the land of lovers there is no custom but complaint, especially upon the threshold of the lord of the Arabs and king of Persia.
The sun in the sky of faith, the Commander of the Faithful, whose essence no jewel of eternity can match.
The essence of all things, bowing at his threshold like the sky, will never raise its bent stature upright again, for all eternity.
So that each might receive its first prostration, the nine heavens have fallen, out of longing, one upon the other.
Four prophets, Abraham, Noah, Khidr and the Messiah, each found a sign in your miracle, you pride of all nations.
This one from the burning fire, that one from the surging flood, this one from enduring life, and that one from life-giving breath.
Your enemy burns in your wrath, your friend rejoices in your grace, one like an unbeliever in hell, the other like a saint in paradise.
In your age, justice rejoices like Jacob at reunion; mischief moans in fear of you like Zulaikha in regret.
When you rise to the peak of glory, you are a Jesus in the heavens; when you plunge into the sea of thought, a Jonah at the ocean's depths.
By your bounty, generosity has been exiled to the realm of being; by your command, oppression has been banished to the city of non-being.
Your sword rises like Zulfiqar in the hour of battle; your nature blossoms like spring in the moment of giving.
From the sky, instead of raindrops, sparks rain down; from the earth, instead of grass and basil, silver coins spring up.
On the day of battle, to fight the vengeful foe, when you array your army and raise your banner,
victory laughs with delight, joy swells with gladness, fear trembles in dread, and oppression moans in remorse.
Blessed is your essence, keeper of the secrets of the unseen; well done your spirit, jewel of the sea of eternity.
Like the holy forms, you have neither place nor this; like pure spirits, you have neither quality nor quantity.
From your noble essence appear, at times, attributes and speech; from your noble nature issue, at times, the deeds of eternity.
I do not call you God, Commander of the Faithful, yet your attributes fall not short of the divine attributes.
The garden of the body, lit by the sun of your love, is an abode of peace; the Kaaba of the heart, without devotion to you, is a house of idols.
If a man is among your friends, lucky even the monk of the cloister; and if among your foes, woe even to the elder of the sanctuary.
Only he can set foot on the pulpit of the caliphate who once stepped onto the shoulder of the Prophet in the sanctuary.
To give your pledge of allegiance to another is sheer injustice, you whose foot, by obedience, has swelled the very base of the throne.
The vengeful sons of the world, the sky bent on spite, the cunning brothers of Joseph, the wolf wrongly accused,
what fear has the host of your friends from the abundance of their sins? What grief has the ark of Noah from the menace of the flood?
When, O Lord, will I become a pilgrim to the lane of Najaf? When, O Lord, will I be a bird of the garden of paradise?
How many nights, dreaming of circling your lane, the bird of my sleep takes flight from the nest of my eyes.
Like a bird that has lost its nest, I have no peace; I remain far from your sanctuary, you pride of all nations.
Ali, a handful of dust from your threshold is out of place to compare; never will my head bow before the crown of Jamshid.
I count it a disgrace to my pride, even in utter need, were I to open my hand in begging before the men of high spirit.
Whoever bears the light of high spirit on his brow is like an oyster: if it takes a single drop from the sea, it gives back a pearl.
Though I carry provisions for the road, bound at my waist like a millstone, better that, out of contentment, I bind a stone to my belly.
As long as the dawn breeze plays the bride's attendant in the rose garden, adorning the drowsy eye of the narcissus and the coiling curls of the hyacinth,
may your enemy be worthless as a thorn in everyone's eyes, and your friend, like the rose, be honored in the eyes of the world.