بسمة منك

لا تفطميني عن هواك حبيبتي
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
بَسْمَةٌ مِنْكِ سَتُحْيِي أَمَلِييَا مُنَى نَفْسِي وَتَمْحُو خَجَلِي
أَسْعِفِينِي بِرُؤَاهَا إِنَّهَا الْــيَوْمَ أَحْلَى مِنْ حِوَارِ الْمُقَلِ
بَلْ وَأَغْلَى مِنْ بِشَارَاتِ الْمُنَىوَاحْتِدَامِ الْوَجْدِ فِي الْقَلْبِ الْخَلِي
هِيَ أَشْهَى فِي الْهَوَى الْعُذْرِيِّ مِنْرَشَفَاتٍ مِنْ لَذِيذِ الْقُبَلِ
إِنْ تَجُودِي بِسَنَاهَا مَرَّةًتَمْلَئِي الْأُفْقَ بِضَوْءٍ هَطِلِ
فَيَرَانِي النَّاسُ فِي أَنْوَارِهِهَائِمًا أَمْشِي كَمِثْلِ الثَّمِلِ
بَسْمَةٌ مِنْكِ بِمَا أَمْلِكُهُوَبِكُلِّ الْكَوْنِ إِنْ لَمْ تَبْخَلِي
يَا لَثَغْرٍ ضَاءَ مِنْ دَاخِلِهِكَوْكَبُ الْحُسْنِ فَأَحْيَا أَمَلِي
عِنْدَمَا شَعَّ بِدَرْبِي نُورُهَاخَفَتَتْ فِيهِ جَمِيعُ الشُّعَلِ
وَبَدَتْ لِي بَسْمَةُ الثَّغْرِ جَنًىمِنْ رَبِيعٍ لِلْهَوَى مُكْتَمِلِ
صُورَةٌ أَبْدَعَهَا رَبُّ الْوَرَىفِي إِطَارٍ مِنْ دَوَالِي الْخُصَلِ
وَجَمَالُ الْوَجْهِ فِي رَوْنَقِهَارَائِعُ الْوَمْضِ نَدِيُّ الْخَضَلِ
هِيَ رَوْضُ الْحُسْنِ فِي دُنْيَا الْهَوَىوَنِدَاءٌ لِلْحَبِيبِ الْوَجِلِ
تَسْحَرُ اللُّبَّ فَمَا أَرْوَعَهَافِي فُؤَادٍ بِالْجَوَى مُشْتَمِلِ
فَاسْحَرِينِي أَنَا أَرْضَى سِحْرَ مَنْبِسِوَاهَا الْقَلْبُ لَمْ يَنْشَغِلِ
لَكِ قَلْبِي كُلُّهُ مُشْتَمِلًاكُلَّ مَعْنَى الْحُبِّ إِنْ أَبْدَعْتِ لِي
بَسْمَةً مِنْكِ خُذِي مِنْ بَعْدِهَامَا تَشَائِينَ فَمَا مِنْ عُذَّلِ
وَاقْبِسِي لِي مَا يَزِيدُ الْحُبَّ فِيعُمْرِيَ الْمَاضِي وَعُمْرِي الْمُقْبِلِ

ممباسا- كينيا
29/6/1992م

A Smile from You

  1. A smile from you will bring my hope to life,
    O my soul’s desire, and put my shyness to flight.
  2. Come to my rescue with the sight of it: today
    it’s sweeter than the conversation of the eyes1,
  3. and dearer, even, than glad tidings of my hopes,
    than passion blazing in a heart once free and light.
  4. In chaste love2 it is more to be desired
    than sips from kisses of the sweetest delight.
  5. If you are generous with its radiance even once,
    you’ll fill the whole horizon with a downpour of light3,
  6. and in its brightness people will see me
    wander, love-dazed, walking like a drunken man.
  7. A smile from you, in exchange for all I own,
    and for the whole of creation, if you will not withhold it!
  8. What a mouth! From deep within it shone
    the star of beauty, and it brought my hope to life.
  9. When the smile’s light shone out upon my path,
    every other flame along it faded out of sight.
  10. The smile upon that mouth appeared to me as fruit
    of a springtime of love that had reached its height,
  11. a picture fashioned by the Lord of all creation
    in a frame of locks that hang like trailing vines4.
  12. And the beauty of the face, in all its splendour,
    is wondrous in its gleam, and dewy in its freshness.
  13. It is the garden of beauty in the world of love,
    and a call to the lover who holds back in fright.
  14. It bewitches the mind: how wondrous it is
    within a heart that longing’s fire has wrapped round tight!
  15. So bewitch me: I gladly take the spell
    of one who alone has ever filled my heart.
  16. Yours is my whole heart, holding
    every meaning love can have, if you’ll create for me
  17. a smile from you5. And after it, take all you wish:
    there’s no reproacher left in sight.
  18. And kindle for me6, in my life gone by
    and in my life to come, what makes my love burn yet more bright.

Mombasa, Kenya, 29 June 1992

Notes

  1. Ḥiwār al-muqal, ‘the conversation of eyes’, is the silent exchange of glances between lovers, a favourite theme of Arabic love poetry, in which eyes say what tongues dare not. ↩
  2. Al-hawā al-ʿudhrī, ‘ʿUdhri love’, is named after the Arab tribe of ʿUdhra, whose poets in early Islamic times were famed for a chaste, devoted and usually unfulfilled love, said to be so intense that they died of it. In such love a smile is worth more than kisses. ↩
  3. Haṭil describes rain that falls steadily and abundantly. The smile’s light is pictured as rain, a blend of images (light that pours, rain that shines) which makes her radiance both brilliant and life-giving. ↩
  4. Dawālī are grapevines, and the word also suggests things that hang down. Her locks frame her face as trailing vines frame a picture, adding the richness of the vine to the image of the ‘springtime of love’ in the verse before. ↩
  5. The sentence runs over from one verse into the next (taḍmīn): the object of ‘create for me’, basmatan minki, ‘a smile from you’, opens the next verse, so the poem’s refrain arrives as its climax. The ʿudhdhāl (singular ʿādhil) are the reproachers, a stock figure of Arabic love poetry: those who blame the lover for his passion. Once she has smiled, no one is left to reproach either of them. ↩
  6. Iqbisī means ‘take a firebrand (qabas) for me’, as one takes fire or light from a flame; the same noun is used in the Qur’an of Moses, who sees a fire and says he will bring his family a brand from it (20:10). The poet asks her to kindle love not only in his future life but in his past, a paradox: her love should flood even the years he lived before knowing her. ↩

English translation prepared by artificial intelligence and reviewed against the Arabic for accuracy of meaning and rhetoric.