1. It is despair, save for a sustaining conversation

    to which he repairs at an appointed gathering.

  2. A scant bounty remains, with but a scant span left;

    no water like this can cool my burning thirst.

  3. They have gathered the tales of one whom passion has wasted away—

    and those are my tales, and the tidings of my brethren.

  4. May God curse the dwelling you inhabit within my breast,

    for you are the worst of neighbors to my soul;

  5. and may He curse a graceful youth who turned his hatred upon my loved ones,

    despite the hatred I see him bear for my love.

  6. I had been more resolute than he in pursuing what he desires,

    and had a better claim to him, but for my heart and my eyes.

  7. They said, “Awaken, and begin life anew, forgetful of love.”

    I told them, “No—the lifetime of love is my lifetime.”

  8. And a cup bearing a trace of its pourer,

    in taste and likeness: his saliva and his cheek.

  9. Whenever he drank deeply from it, it faced him as he studied it,

    and his face confirmed for it the likeness it had copied.

  10. Before today he had forbidden union with her,

    so I forbade her to myself; now he permits it, and she is lawful.

  11. Come, pour it for me, and make me forget the solace people offer,

    when one rapture after another cuts me off from them.

  12. The hand of beneficence is like a noble beauty,

    possessed of glory—all glory—even if she withholds.

  13. But if you count generosity among their stumbles,

    then measure every man against al-Mufaddal, through whom that hand slipped.

  14. You will find a company too heavy for miserliness to carry;

    but when the palm of generosity bears it, it grows light.

  15. How often the glad promise of his face has guaranteed on his behalf

    success to one who hoped in him—and fulfilled, fully fulfilled, its pledge.

  16. To close kinship he added its equal

    in generosity, so kinship was enriched by it and stood on its own.

  17. The turns of fortune had taken up permanent residence with me

    until he undertook to turn them away—and away they went.

  18. A hand that longs to see someone upon whom it may bestow,

    though it has never lacked the very thing for which it longed.

  19. How much wealth, readily within its reach, that hand has gained;

    yet it did not rest content with riches: it gave, and made others rich.

  20. A man of swift succor in deeds of honor,

    so swift that he almost heeds one who has yet to call.

  21. People saw in him that the paths to eminence were easy,

    and souls that had never aspired before began to aspire.

  22. They did not know his thoughts and his great concerns;

    had they known them, they would have found them too subtle and too immense.

Sol 5.6