Sol 5.6

  1. Many a brief hour of delight I passed,

    brief as the blink of an eye or a frightened man’s sip.

  2. It held a gathering where every desire had assembled:

    song for one with ears to hear, and wine for one who drinks;

  3. and beauty embodied—had she appeared before a monk,

    she would have made him forget all that temples and scriptures contain.

  4. A rare beauty, wondrous and unequalled in her loveliness,

    subtle in essence, containing every subtle charm.

  5. I never knew the sun could have a rival

    until I beheld that sun with flowing side-locks.

  6. Away, then—set, O sun of day! For we

    have no need of you, blessed with a sun whose light is never eclipsed.

  7. O full moon, how often they have likened you to her face!

    They were surely wrong: the radiant is nothing like the eclipsed.

  8. O branch, how often you mimic her figure’s graceful poise;

    you mimic it—but where are the full, weighty curves behind?

Sol 5.6