Sol 5.6

  1. Welcome, young gazelle—you have outshone the gazelle’s graceful neck,

    with your long, elegant neck and your great, wide eyes.

  2. Your Creator clothed you in a robe of beauty;

    you eclipsed the sunlight and surpassed the crescent’s glow.

  3. You gathered all beauty, until your whole being became perfection.

    Whether approaching or turning away, you are beautiful in every state.

  4. Ah, what an enchantment, stealing away the reason of men!

    No bough upon the dune ever traced such grace when the north wind stirred it,

  5. however it swayed and rocked, however it strutted and leaned,

    like your areca-palm figure in suppleness and poise.

  6. You have killed me with love, though killing me is not lawful.

    From the bow of a pitiless brow, you shot me with arrows.

  7. I have borne of your love what, had the mountains borne it,

    would surely have crushed them all and turned them into sand.

  8. Whoever says that love is easy and its attainment near

    has lied, invented falsehood, and spoken the impossible.

  9. How many a mind has it overturned, and how much wealth has been spent upon it!

    How many eyes have lain sleepless because of it; how many a master of spiritual states has it distressed!

  10. Toward union with him—onward! Whoever seeks becomes precious.

    Whoever possesses a beautiful spiritual state will find his ascent lofty.

  11. The poem is done. Send blessings upon the Chosen One, Bilal’s master,

    and upon all his Companions and his family—the best of families.

Sol 5.6