I Love You
- From the love poetry of Nizar Qabbani:
I love you until my glow fades away
With eyes as vast as the sky
Until I disappear, vein by vein
In depths of chestnut intertwining
Until I feel that you are a part of me
And part of my beliefs, and part of my blood
I love you in a stupor that does not awaken
I am a thirst that cannot be quenched
I am a wrinkle in the folds of a shirt
In its shivers, my pride was revealed
I am the mercy of your eyes, we are one
The spring of spring, the gift of gifts
I love you; do not ask for any evidence
The suns have been wounded by my claims
If I love you, my soul loves
For we are the song and its echo
Neighbor of the Valley
- Ahmad Shawqi’s romantic inclinations are reflected in this poem:
O neighbor of the valley, I was entranced by the echoes
That resemble dreams from your memories
I embodied your love in remembrance, in slumber
And memories resonate the years gone by
I strolled through the meadows, on a hill
Where I longed to encounter you
You reminded me of the rush of longing and love
When you passed, your steps kissed
I did not know the sweetness of embraces in love
Until your gentle approach enveloped me
And the curve of your waist in my hands
Turned your cheeks crimson with modesty
I entered into the nights of your allure and twilight
And kissed your mouth, like the illuminating dawn
I found in the essence of my being an ecstasy
Born of your sweetness and the dregs of your lips
Your gaze moves toward you in the fabric or
In ivory from which you hail
Nature embraced you with softness
As the protectors cherished you
The Chill of Hijaz’s Breeze at Dawn
- About the beloved Abla, Antara ibn Shaddad expresses:
The chill of Hijaz’s breeze at dawn
If it comes to me with its fragrant air
Is sweeter to me than treasures
Of jewels, wealth, and pearls
I do not yearn for the kingdom of Kisra if
The face of the beloved is absent from my sight
May rain bless the tents that rise on
The sweet presence of joyous comfort
There are dwellings where the moons rise
Stirring shadows in the darkness of hair
Whites and blacks shielding their hosts
Lions in the wilderness with their majesty
Stole my heart, among them was a maiden
With eyes lined black that were enchanting
She shows you her smile from her mouth
Like a goblet of fine wine adorned with gems
She lent the gazelle the magic of her glance
And the lion of desire lingered on alert
So graceful and slender, enchanting
She puts the beauty of the moon to shame
O Abla, the fire of passion in my heart
Fires my heart with arrows of sparks
O Abla, had it not been for the imagination’s whisper
I would have spent my nights with weeping and wakefulness
O Abla, how many temptations have I endured
And faced them with the keen sword
And the horses, faces darkened like clouds
Brave the sea of destruction and peril
I fend off calamities concerning you and yet
I cannot resist fate and destiny
The Savage Poem
- Nizar Qabbani’s verses on his loved one:
Love me without conditions
And lose yourself in the lines of my hands
Love me for a week, for days, for hours
For I am not the one who cares for eternity
I am October, a month of winds
Of rains and chills
I am October, so consume yourself
Like a lightning bolt on my body
Love me
With the wildness of the Mongols
With all the heat of the jungles
Every fierceness of the rain
And leave neither trace nor restraint
And never mature at all
For I have fallen upon your lips
All the civilization of the settled
Love me
Like a quake, like an untimely death
And let your breast, tempered
With sulfur and sparks
Attack me like a hungry wolf
And gnaw at me, striking
Like the rains strike the shores of the islands
I am a man without fate
So you be my destiny
And keep me upon your breasts
Like an engraving in stone
Love me without asking how
And do not stutter in embarrassment
And do not scatter with fear
Love me without complaint
Does the sheath complain when it receives the sword?
And be the sea and the port
Be the land and the exile
Be the calm and the whirlwind
Be soft and fierce
Love me in a thousand ways
And do not repeat yourself like summer
For I loathe the summer
Love me and say it
I reject loving you in silence
And I refuse to bury love
In the cemetery of silence
Love me away from the lands of oppression and repression
Afar from our city that has been full of death
Far from its fanaticism
Far from its stiffness
Love me… away from our city
That since its inception
Has not received love
Nor has God ventured there
Love me and fear not for your feet
My lady, from the water
For no woman will sink
With your body outside the water
And your hair outside the water
Your breast, a white duck
Lives not without water
Love me in my purity or my mistakes
In my sobriety or my drunkenness
And cover me
O roof woven with flowers
O henna forests
Unclothe
And rain down
Upon my thirst and desert
And dissolve in my mouth like wax
And blend with my fragments
Unclothe and split my lips
Into two halves, O Musa in Sinai
The Eyelids of the Maidens Through the Veils
- Antara ibn Shaddad poetically addresses his beloved Abla:
The eyelids of maidens through the veils
Shatter sharper than smooth white blades
If stripped, the brave would yield and
Its sockets would be wounded by the flood of tears
May God bless my uncle with a sip from the hand of death
And his hands be paralyzed after the severing of fingers
As someone like me led to oblivion
And dangled hopes by the hem of greed
Abla bid me farewell one day, between
A farewell certain that I will not return
And she wailed, asking how you would bear
When you are absent from us in vast deserts
By your truth, I never sought solace in time
Nor let ambitions sway me from your love
So be confident in me, with kind affection
And live peacefully in delight, unaffected
I told her: “O Abla, I am a traveler”
Even if limits of bonds presented themselves before me
We were created for this love long before
Thus no refutation enters the confines of my ears
O emblem of joy, shall I return
And look at your lands adorned with orchids
And my eyes behold the elevated hills and the horizon
And the dwellers of that sprout among the pastures
And may the land of comfort and romance unite us
So, O breezes of the bay, please tell
Abla about my journey in every location
And O clouds, deliver my greetings in the dawn
And to my home in the sanctuary and embrace
O rustlers of the trees, when I die, mourn me
On my soil among the lamenting birds
And wail for those who have died unjustly and not found
Except distance from their beloved and tragedies
And O horses, weep for a knight who would meet
Themselves facing death and in the midst of turmoil
And now far away in love and humiliation
Tied by heavy chains of fate
I will not weep if death comes to me
But my longing will cause my tears to flow
And it is not pride that describes my anguish and intensity
For my name has become widely known in every gathering
By the truth of love, do not reproach me, and limit
Condemnation for lamentation serves no purpose
And how can I endure the patience of a love
When the fire of desire has been kindled within my ribs