هُوَ الصَّبَاحُ إِذَا مَا جَاءَ ذَكَّرَنِيبِأَصْبَحِ النَّاسِ وَجْهًا وَهْيَ تَفْتِنُنِي
فِي خَاطِرِي شَوْقُهَا مَا زَالَ مُشْتَعِلًاوَمُهْجَتِي لَا تَنِي تَهْتَاجُ فِي الْفِتَنِ
لَوْ تَعْلَمُ الْيَوْمَ مَنْ فِي الْكَوْنِ أَعْشَقُهَامُصِيبَتِي.. لَسَعَتْ فَوْرًا إِلَى حُضُنِي
وَأَمْطَرَتْنِي بِفَيْضٍ مِنْ سُلَافَتِهَالِتُنْعِشَ الرُّوحَ تَسْتَبْقِيهِ فِي بَدَنِي
وَيْلَاهُ هَلْ لَا يَزَالُ الْعُمْرُ بَاقِيَةًأَيَّامُهُ كَيْ أَرَاهَا يَوْمَ تَحْضُنُنِي؟
كَالطَّيْرِ قُصَّ جَنَاحَاهُ بَقِيتُ هُنَاوَالْبَيْنُ فَتَّتَ أَوْصَالِي وَأَوْهَنَنِي
فَهَلْ تُرَانِي أُلَاقِيهَا وَفِي بَدَنِيحُشَاشَةٌ قَبْلَ أَنْ يَضُمَّنِي كَفَنِي؟
It Is the Morning
- It is the morning: every time it comes, it brings to mind
the fairest-faced1 of all, and she enchants me. - Within my thoughts my longing for her blazes still,
and my heart, amid enchantments, stirs unceasingly. - If she whom I love most in all creation knew
my plight today, she’d hurry to my arms immediately, - and she would rain on me a flood of her choicest wine2,
to revive my soul and keep it lingering in me. - Alas! Are there still days left in my life,
that I may see her on the day she embraces me? - Like a bird whose wings are clipped, here I have stayed,
and parting has crumbled all my limbs, and weakened me. - I wonder: shall I meet her while a last breath lingers
in my body, before my shroud enfolds me?
Notes
- Aṣbaḥ al-nās wajhan, ‘the fairest-faced of people’, uses ṣabāḥa, beauty and brightness of face, from the same root as ṣabāḥ, ‘morning’. The morning reminds him of her because her very beauty is ‘morning-like’: the word itself carries the link that English must spell out. ↩
- Sulāfa is the first and finest wine, which flows from the grapes before they are pressed. In love poetry it stands for the beloved’s kisses and the intoxication of her presence. ↩
English translation prepared by artificial intelligence and reviewed against the Arabic for accuracy of meaning and rhetoric.