In Praise of Spring and Ali the Brave

Good news for the nightingale: the rose has come to the orchard branches. The meadow has become like a gathering once more, glowing with the beloved's face. The grass stood tall from the moisture of the gentle air, and the tulip's cheek caught fire from the warm breath of spring. Fire blossoms from the rose branch like the burning tree of Sinai, and clear water boils from the spring like the oven of Noah. Look at the riot of blossoms: a nightingale cannot gather even a handful of thorns to build its nest. The garden so overflows with freshness that even the storm wind cannot raise dust from the ground. In this orderly air there is no harm in the meadow; the flower picker's hand stays clear of thorns, like a spectator's lap. Friends, the laugh of the partridge and the nightingale's song, on the high mountains and down in the meadows, urge the drunkards to wander among the flowers, and call the free spirits to roam the hills. From the songs of the drunken nightingales across the lawn, and the faces of bold, lovely ones throughout the towns, sorrow trembles as before a king's army's banner, while the rose swells with pride at the king's host. The garden's nightingale, the tavern's companion at dawn's first drink, has now made singing love songs in drunkenness its custom. One praises the wine, red as the redbud, in the tavern; the other extols the garden air among the tulip beds. The time has come to roam the meadow once again, joyful, fortunate, light of mind, and content. The nightingale draws joy from the rose's face, the dove from the cypress top, the cupbearer from the flask of wine, the lover from the beloved's cheek. The dawn breeze acts as a bridal dresser, adorning the garden's new brides with all this color and design, so that it may make you wise to the wisdom of pure God, and make you see the power of the Creator. To my eyes the rose garden is like a girl kept at home; it will shine clear for you once the dust is wiped from your sight. To guide the birds of the meadow, God's decree has spread a mat: the cypress as throne, the thornbush as reed mat. So the nightingale, that preacher, may sprinkle the rosewater of his sermon, and the lily, that worshipper, may open its tongue in apology. Bravo to the wisdom cast across the meadow, well done to the power revealed in the garden, giving prayer beads of blossoms to the cloaked wild rose, and a prayer rug of jasmine to the dewdrop that keeps vigil through the night. So much have they pressed their faces of supplication to the garden's earth, out of dread and fear and awe of the Creator. See the redbud, ruby colored, and the jasmine like a prayer rug; look at the rose with its bloodstained brow, the hyacinth with its indigo face. Morning and night, in longing for Him, the cypress holds a finger to its lips; day and night, in His service, the plane tree holds its hands at its waist. Sometimes the bright lightning laughs out loud at His command, sometimes the April cloud weeps bitterly in fear of Him. The tulip, merry, drinks wine from the flask of His bounty, the narcissus, drunk, sips from the cup of His generosity. From the surge of spring my colorful nature gave rise to a verse, like Venus, the flower, rising from the branch of my pen. So that I am not counted among the carefree of this age, O heart, heave a sigh; O wet eye, shed a tear. An eye without tears has no worth in my sight; once the shell holds no pearl, it falls from esteem. If a single drop of my burning tears reaches the sea, or I draw from my chest a flaming sigh in the garden, every bubble on the sea's lip would turn to a blister, and every dewdrop would scorch the flowers' faces like a spark. I fear my mournful weeping will slip from my mind, because my laughter comes so easily to the people of this world. The company of worldly people has grown tiresome and stale; blessed is the one who chooses a corner of solitude. Those who withdraw are sheltered from misfortune; the ship is safe from danger once it reaches the shore. So intimate have I grown with the sorrows of the world that no memory of joy crosses my hopeful heart. Every moment, in the sea of grief from my fallen fortune, like a wave I am cast against the shore of the plain. Behold my dark luck: at the very start of love, fate, out of spite, struck me with separation from the beloved. How long must I wait by the road for your promise, you whose constant habit is forgetting your lovers? I bear such scars in my heart from your cruel parting that it is no wonder tulips will spring from the earth of my grave until the day of resurrection. Without the rose of your face I am so withered, like autumn, that at the sight of spring's splendor a thorn pricks my eye. May my restless hand never become a thorn snagging your hem; like a plucked flower, gather your skirt and pass by my grave. My eyes do not close, like the eye of a window, so bewildered have they stayed, longing for you on the road of waiting. How can I go on, weakened as I am? In the end my frailties will serve me. You whose kohl darkened eyes have drawn the sword of cruelty, you whose pale beauty has spilled the blood of spring, I have seen nothing in the world more bloodthirsty than your sidelong glance, except Haydar's Zulfiqar in the hand striking the enemy in battle. You, in whose reign of justice cruelty has no foothold, you, in whose age of vigilant rule oppression cannot stand, wherever your generosity lifts the veil from its brow, the sea hearted cloud sheds the water of shame from its face. When the poison wind of your wrath sweeps the battlefield, the fragrance of your kindness fills the gathering with musk. Your love does to friends what the breeze does to the garden, and your fury does to enemies what the storm wind does to dust. The heaven's height is like Joseph and your essence the depth of the well; the earth's surface is the Prophet and your person hidden within the cave. The sea would beg with a bowl made of a shell when, in the hour of giving, your hand becomes a cloud scattering pearls. Generosity is set in your nature like jewels in mountains; bounty is bound to your essence like pearls in seas. Though the choice of a whole world lies in your hand, your gold scattering hand has no choice but to keep giving. If the sky is not searching for you, then why is it restless, like a lover's heart from the fire of separation? O exalted one whose horse's horseshoe deserves, should the crescent moon allow, to adorn the heavens as an earring, how can my subtle pen render his praise in verse, the steed ridden by one like Haydar, the warrior? God keep it, what a swift charger it is, racing like lightning, like a sigh that bursts unbidden from a heavy heart. So firm is its tread that if it sets its hoof on a mountain, its path is blocked only by the hardest granite. Fate's trainer brought it four traits from eternity, and became its teacher in mastering skill: the swiftness of effort from the flood, the smooth rein from the breeze, the sharpness of its dash from lightning, the fiery speed from the spark. It deserves that the sky's white horse, the sun, out of love, lay its rein around its neck like a collar and its saddle girth against its side. How can I set about describing your majesty, you whose qualities, like the stars, cannot be counted? To the wise and learned it is no wonder that a claimant should hold power over the caliphate while you exist, for the sky has its lucky and unlucky stars, the earth its ruby and its stone, the garden its thorn and rose, the gathering its stranger and its friend. Without a word, his flaw bears witness against him, if he sets the common shell beside the royal pearl, or weighs the shining sun against Canopus, or strikes false silver on the scale of the assayer. As long as I am barred from your door, O sea of grace, as long as I am parted from your presence, O mountain of dignity, I writhe in blood like the dawn glow, heart bleeding like the rose, bent like the crescent moon, weeping like the rain cloud. When the breeze of circling your shrine enters my heart, I draw the grace a lover draws from union with the beloved. Your threshold, the place where holy light descends, I long to kiss; I offer my prostrations there.