1. O house of Yusuf, may no greeting pass you by

    from rainclouds, amid thunder and lightning.

  2. Radiant, its mouths smiling toward you,

    as the beloved smiles toward the devoted lover.

  3. May rain bless those dwellings, peopled

    by hosts whose courtyards are frequented, and by visitors.

  4. Red in their foundations and domes, as though

    they had been steeped in shimmering, clear saffron perfume.

  5. From their blossoms and clouds, you are greeted

    by dusky mantles and cushions intermingled.

  6. And the white temple gleams in their midst,

    like a daisy in a carpet of anemones.

  7. How many a mute figure it holds, and many a figure

    that surpasses it with a tongue that speaks!

  8. Each slender-waisted youth, whose crown is his hair,

    seems a rising sun emerging from night.

  9. And a slender youth—if I could direct his affairs,

    I would exchange his black haircloth robes for tunics.

  10. How often there I gazed on my desires, then attained them,

    between one whose beauty draws the eye and one who gazes.

  11. And a reproached lover, who grasped youth with his right hand,

    then raced with it like a headstrong steed racing ahead.

  12. And I slept heedless of its gazelles and wolves,

    between one robbed of love's union and one who steals it.

  13. In those days, whenever its darkness deepened,

    I found my way to it more surely than a night-visiting phantom.

  14. An age whose shade I wore, as though it were

    a rising sun's bright brow in the darkness of days.

Sol 6.1