Sol 6.1

  1. A lover, enthralled by youth's radiant charms,

    his waist-wrapper and bordered cloak trailing.

  2. He humbles whoever reproaches him and whoever rebukes him.

    He is stirred to longing until he nearly perishes

  3. by a smooth cheek and a slender figure.

    So his two companions are young men and wine,

  4. and his two resources a swift steed and a keen blade.

    The monastery and the lookout stirred his desire,

  5. and its garden, embroidered and striped:

    wholesome soil and languid air.

  6. Whichever way the eye is turned within it,

    there is a carpet of stock flowers, dripping with dew,

  7. with a fringe of fresh-picked myrtle.

    And a stream whose deep waters never run dry,

  8. its two flanks polished by the gusting winds.

    Its fish are close at hand, snapping up food.

  9. So its water is clarified and pearl-studded,

    like a mirage the open expanse smiles to reveal.

  10. So they flutter over its reaches,

    each a target for the arrow of its doom.

  11. I covered them; death is more enveloping still.

    I likened it to a coat of mail as its links are joined.

  12. In it are eyes whose gaze is thick-lashed;

    water strikes them, yet they remain unharmed.

  13. Then hollow reeds followed it,

    like spear-shafts straightened by the shaft-straightener.

  14. And each curved hook described in connection with it

    is like the crescent, though thinner than it.

  15. Its two traits are gentleness and harshness.

    So it kept being cast out, then snatched up,

  16. and we bring together their scattered numbers,

    as though they were daggers that bend.

  17. The Qur'an made their torment lawful for me,

    and there is no escape from death's stroke.

Sol 6.1