نبضات قلبي

أنت أبهى
ترجمة إنجليزية
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نَبَضَاتُ قَلْبِي لَا تَزَالُ تُجَدِّدُعَهْدَ الْهَوَى وَلِسَقْيِهِ تَتَعَهَّدُ
وَإِلَى لِقَائِكِ يَا أَنِيسَةَ مُهْجَتِيوَلِضَمِّ حِضْنِكِ أَضْلُعِي تَتَوَقَّدُ
فَصِلِي أَوَاصِرَ مَنْ أَسَرْتِ فُؤَادَهُحَتَّى يَعُودَ إِلَى الْحَيَاةِ فَيَسْعَدُ
لَهْفِي إِلَى تِلْكَ الْعُيُونِ نَوَاعِساًفَتَكَتْ بِأَفْئِدَةٍ وَبَاتَتْ تَرْقُدُ
شَوْقِي إِلَى التُّفَّاحَتَيْنِ يَزِينُهَاغَمَّازَتَانِ وَوَجْنَةٌ تَتَوَرَّدُ
وَمَرَاشِفٍ فِيهَا عِلَاجُ مَوَاجِعِيبِرُضَابِهَا الْمَعْسُولِ طَابَ الْمَوْرِدُ
لَمَعَتْ لَآلِئُهَا فَأَشْرَقَ ضَوْؤُهَابَيْنَ احْمِرَارِ شِفَاهِهَا تَتَنَضَّدُ
قَسَماً بِوَجْهٍ أَبْدَعَتْ قَسَمَاتِهِيَدُ خَالِقٍ نَسْعَى إِلَيْهِ وَنَحْفِدُ
وَبِقَدِّهَا الْمَمْشُوقِ لَدْناً بَانُهُوَبِخَصْرِهَا الْمَنْهُوكِ وَهْوَ مُمَهَّدُ
مَا بَالُ ثَاكِلَةٍ بِأَوْجَدَ فِي الْجَوَىمِنْ قَلْبِيَ الْمُلْتَاعِ وَهْوَ مُبَعَّدُ
فَصِلِي فُؤَادِي إِنَّهُ لَكِ عَاشِقٌوَالْعِشْقُ أَفْضَلُ مَا مَهَرْتِ وَأَرْشَدُ

My Heartbeats

  1. My heartbeats keep on renewing love’s pledge1,
    and faithfully they water it and tend.
  2. My ribs, O comfort of my soul, are burning
    to meet you, and to be clasped and held.
  3. So join again the ties with him whose heart
    you captured, so he may come to life again, made glad.
  4. Ah, my longing for those drowsy2 eyes
    that slew the hearts, and then lay down to sleep!
  5. My longing for the two apples, graced
    by two dimples, and a cheek that flushes rose,
  6. and for lips that hold the cure for all my pains:
    how sweet the spring3, with their honeyed dew!
  7. Their pearls have gleamed, and their light has shone,
    strung in a row between her lips’ bright red.
  8. I swear by a face whose features4 were wrought
    by the hand of a Creator towards whom we strive and speed5,
  9. and by her figure, slender, supple as the ban6,
    and by her waist, wasp-thin and smoothly made:
  10. what mother, mourning for her own lost child,
    burns more with grief than my anguished heart, exiled?
  11. So join my heart to yours, for it’s in love with you,
    and love’s the finest, truest dowry7 ever paid.

Notes

  1. ʿAhd, ‘covenant, pledge’, and tataʿahhad, ‘tend, keep faith with’, share a root: the heart both renews its pledge and tends love like a plant it waters regularly. ↩
  2. Nawāʿis, ‘drowsy’, describes the heavy-lidded, languorous eyes prized in Arabic love poetry. The irony is an old one: the eyes kill hearts, then sleep untroubled, as though innocent. ↩
  3. Marāshif, ‘lips’, means literally ‘places for sipping’; ruḍāb is the beloved’s saliva, likened to honey; and al-mawrid is the watering place to which a thirsty traveller comes down. The images are those of the desert: the lips are a spring, and the lover is parched. ↩
  4. Qasaman, ‘I swear’, and qasamātuhā, ‘its features’, chime in a wordplay (jinās) that English cannot keep. The oath runs on through the next verse and receives its answer in verse 10. ↩
  5. Nasʿā wa-naḥfid, ‘we strive and hasten’, are words from the qunūt supplication recited in prayer: wa-ilayka nasʿā wa-naḥfid, ‘and towards You we strive and hasten’. The oath by her beauty is thus framed by the praise of its Creator. ↩
  6. The bān (ben tree, Moringa peregrina) is a tall, slender tree with pliant branches, the classical image for a graceful, swaying figure. ↩
  7. Mahr is the dowry a man gives his bride in Islamic marriage. The poet offers his love as that dowry and asks her to accept it: ṣilī, ‘join’, also means to grant union (waṣl). The unvowelled mhrt is read as muhirti, ‘you have been given as dowry’; it can also be read mahartu, ‘the finest dowry I have given’. ↩

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