a's 'Love Poems': Translation of W. Gifford Palgrave

In the valley of Mohassib I beheld her where she stood:
Caution bade me turn aside, but love forbade and fixed me there.
Was it sunlight? or the windows of a gleaming mosque at eve,
Lighted up for festal worship? or was all my fancy's dream?
Ah, those earrings! ah, that necklace! Naufel's daughter sure the
maid,
Or of Hashim's princely lineage, and the Servant of the Sun!
But a moment flashed the splendor, as the o'er-hasty handmaids drew
Round her with a jealous hand the jealous curtains of the tent.
Speech nor greeting passed between us; but she saw me, and I saw
Face the loveliest of all faces, hands the fairest of all hands.
Daughter of a better earth, and nurtured by a brighter sky;
Would I ne'er had seen thy beauty! Hope is fled, but love remains.

FROM THE DIWAN OF AL-NABIGHAH

A eulogy of the valor and culture of the men of Ghassan, written in time
of the poet's political exile from them: Translation of C. J. Lyall.

Leave me alone, O Umaimah--alone with my sleepless pain--
alone with the livelong night and the wearily lingering stars;
It draws on its length of gloom; methinks it will never end,
nor ever the Star-herd lead his flock to their folds of rest;--
Alone with a breast whose griefs, that roamed far afield by day,
the darkness has brought all home: in legions they throng around.
A favor I have with 'Amr, a favor his father bore
toward me of old; a grace that carried no scorpion sting.
I swear (and my word is true--an oath that hath no reserve,
and naught in my heart is hid save fair thought of him, my friend)--
If these twain his fathers were, who lie in their graves; the one
al-Jillik, the others al-Saida, by Harib's side,
And Harith, of Jafnah's line, the lord of his folk of old--
yea, surely his might shall reach the home of his enemy!
In him hope is sure of help when men say--"The host is sped,
the horsemen of Ghassan's line unblemished, no hireling herd,
His cousins, all near of kin, their chief 'Amr, 'Amir's son--
a people are they whose might in battle shall never fail!"
When goes forth the host to war, above them in circles wheel
battalions of eagles, pointing the path to battalions more;
Their friendship is old and tried, fast comra