Sol 5.6

  1. We called on Abu ʿĀmir in night’s enfeebling hours,

    while the night-star still glanced at him.

  2. The horizon had unveiled the weather’s harshness,

    of which the sky’s tongue spoke aloud.

  3. Lightning flickered, just as there flickers

    a maiden’s hand adorned by a gleaming jewel.

  4. An icy wind sprang up, bitter cold,

    as fine spray—then a driving rain took it over.

  5. You could see the men’s waist-wraps in its rush—

    strays in flight, with nothing to restrain them.

  6. If it came up behind a weary nightfarer,

    we would see him, driven by it, race ahead.

  7. Then, when from his face there beamed

    a crescent, and from his cheer a flash,

  8. we gathered beside him around a four-legged thing,

    of brass, exquisitely wrought by a master.

  9. Its crest, when it leapt aloft, was like

    a banner fluttering over an ember.

  10. The heat of its breaths makes me fancy—

    its yellow pallor too—that it is a lover.

Sol 5.6