الليل.. السهر.. الجمال

لا تفطميني عن هواك حبيبتي
ترجمة إنجليزية
شارك:
أَنَا لَا أَبِيتُ اللَّيْلَ إِلَّا سَاهِرًاأَرْعَى خَيَالًا مِنْكِ يَطْرُقُ زَائِرَا
وَالْوَجْدُ يُقْصِي عَنْ نَوَاظِرِيَ الْكَرَىوَالشَّوْقُ أَمْسَى فِي فُؤَادِي قَاهِرَا
جَالَتْ عُيُونِي فِي جَمَالِكِ مَرَّةًفَغَدَا فُؤَادِي مِنْ جَمَالِكِ حَائِرَا
أَنَا لَا أَزَالُ لِنَبْعِ حُسْنِكِ ظَامِئًامَهْمَا رَوِيتُ فَلَسْتُ أُرْوِي الْخَاطِرَا
أَنَا لَمْ أَزَلْ مِنْ بَحْرِ حُبِّكِ غَارِفًاعَجَبًا وَكَيْفَ أَعُبُّ بَحْرًا زَاخِرَا
أَنْتِ الَّتِي لَا أَسْتَطِيعُ سُلُوَّهَافَلَقَدْ لَقِيتُ لَدَيْكِ قَلْبًا طَاهِرَا
الشَّمْسُ إِنْ سَطَعَتْ عَلَيْكِ عَكَسْتِهَاأَلْوَانَ طَيْفٍ أَوْ سَنًى مُتَقَاطِرَا
وَالْبَدْرُ إِمَّا كَانَ فَوْقَكِ طَالِعًاأَجِدِ الدُّنَى اكْتَسَتِ الْجَمَالَ الْآسِرَا
أَنَا لَا أُحِسُّ بِغَيْرِ حُسْنِكِ فِي الدُّنَىوَلَقَدْ رُزِقْتُ لِذَاكَ حِسًّا شَاعِرَا
أَنَا مَا افْتَقَدْتُكِ فِي حَيَاتِي مَرَّةًإِلَّا وَكَانَ لَدَيَّ شَخْصُكِ حَاضِرَا
وَمُنَايَ أَجْمَعُهَا لَدَيْكِ كَأَنَّمَاكُوِّنْتِ مِنْ رُوحِي شُعَاعًا سَائِرَا
وَلَأَنْتِ لُغْزٌ فِي حَيَاتِي مُبْهَمٌكَضَفَائِرٍ رَاحَتْ تَشُدُّ ضَفَائِرَا
وَهَوَايَ عَنْكِ يَفُكُّ كُلَّ ضَفِيرَةٍحَتَّى أَرَى شَعْرًا كَرُوحِي طَائِرَا
صُونِي هَوَايَ كَمَا أَصُونُكِ إِنَّنِينِعْمَ الْمُحِبُّ وَلَمْ أَزَلْ بِكِ شَاهِرَا
أَنَا لَسْتُ أُضْمِرُ دَاخِلِي شَيْئًا سِوَىحُبِّيكِ حَتَّى قَدْ غَدَا مُتَوَاتِرَا

صنعاء – اليمن
19/9/1993م

Night… Vigil… Beauty

  1. I never pass the night except awake,
    watching for your phantom1, which comes knocking, a night visitor.
  2. Passion drives sleep far from my eyes,
    and longing has become my heart’s conqueror.
  3. My eyes roamed over your beauty once,
    and ever since, your beauty has left my heart bewildered.
  4. I thirst still for the spring of your loveliness:
    however much I drink, my mind still thirsts for more.
  5. I have never ceased to scoop from the sea of your love.
    How strange! How could I gulp a sea that swells beyond its shore?
  6. You are the one I cannot get over,
    for I have found in you a heart that’s pure.
  7. When the sun shines on you, you cast it back
    in colours of the spectrum2, or in radiance falling drop by drop.
  8. And whenever the full moon rises over you,
    I find the world clothed in a beauty that enthrals.
  9. I sense nothing in all the world but your beauty,
    and for this I was given a poet’s sense3.
  10. Never once in my life have I missed you
    without your person standing there before me.
  11. And all my wishes rest with you, as though
    you had been formed out of my soul, a ray of light that travels on.
  12. You are an enigma in my life, obscure,
    like braids that have set about binding braids.
  13. And my love for you unravels every braid,
    until I see hair4, like my soul, take flight and soar.
  14. Guard my love as I guard you, for I
    am the best of lovers, and I never cease to proclaim you5.
  15. I harbour nothing within me but my love for you,
    so much that it has passed from mouth to mouth6, unbroken.

Sanaa, Yemen, 19 September 1993

Notes

  1. The khayāl, also called ṭayf, is the phantom of the beloved that visits the lover by night, a central motif of classical Arabic love poetry. The verb yaṭruqu is the proper word for it, since ṭurūq is a visit made by night, knocking at the door. ↩
  2. Alwān al-ṭayf means ‘the colours of the spectrum’, the rainbow. Ṭayf is also the name of the beloved’s night phantom of verse 1, so in the light she reflects the ‘spectrum’ and the ‘phantom’ share one word. ↩
  3. Ḥissan shāʿiran: shāʿir means both ‘feeling, sensing’ and ‘poet’. The phrase is at once ‘a sensibility that feels’ and ‘a poet’s sense’. Because he feels only her beauty, he was given the gift of poetry. ↩
  4. Shaʿr, ‘hair’, and shiʿr, ‘poetry’, are written identically in unvowelled Arabic. Read one way, he sees her hair, unbraided by his love, flying free; read the other, he sees poetry soaring like his soul, loosened from the knots of the ‘enigma’ she poses. The pun (tawriya) ties her beauty to the poems it inspires, and picks up the ‘poet’s sense’ of verse 9. ↩
  5. Shāhir: one who makes something public and famous. The same verb is used of drawing a sword from its sheath (shahara al-sayf), which lends his proclamation of her an air of open, fearless display. ↩
  6. Mutawātir means ‘continuous, following in unbroken succession’. It is also the term in Hadith scholarship for a report handed down by so many people that it cannot be doubted. His love is both constant and so widely told that it has become common knowledge, which follows from his ‘proclaiming’ her in the previous verse. ↩

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