Sol 5.6

  1. Those who visit the sick are baffled by my case—

    a prisoner of anguish, robbed of sleep.

  2. Love has brought him low;

    whoever loves does not deny abasement.

  3. Who will bring me the one who gazes

    upon humankind with an enchanter’s eyes?

  4. Beauty keeps him aloof,

    so he turns away, skittish and hard to lead;

  5. yet at times he draws near,

    as a bird sips water from a shallow pool.

  6. His neck is gracefully supple,

    his cheek adorned with a beauty mark.

  7. Veils enfold him,

    while I yearn for the curtained canopy.

  8. He stretched out both sides of his neck

    and passed like a gazelle into its wild.

  9. What led me to him was

    the fitful chiming of jewelry at his neck,

  10. and the languid half-closing of his eyes,

    which swiftly slays the innocent one made love-sick by him.

  11. And if I should be struck dead

    by him, so much the better for me when he glances.

  12. Can the heart escape unscathed

    when the eye’s arrows show no mercy?

  13. I wished that my beloved—

    whose hair holds a fragrance like wine’s bouquet—

  14. would but grant union as lavishly

    as Abu al-Abbas gives from his abundance:

  15. in generosity and nobility,

    the greatest of men seems small beside his stature.

  16. O Kaaba of lordly glory,

    you scatter wealth by handfuls without hesitation!

  17. For a champion such as you

    races the eminent and leaves them behind.

  18. O wanderer circling the water,

    would you have fresh water that has filled the buckets?

  19. Make for the sons of al-Qasim,

    and set your course from the West toward Salé.

  20. Mount swift, hard-striding camels;

    you would imagine the caravan amid the open waste

  21. to be ships straining onward,

    through seas of mirage, yet never sinking.

  22. The caravan rejoices,

    while the she-camels complain of the journey.

  23. I call him “the Judge,”

    and his command judges against me and for me.

  24. I am content with him,

    for he fulfills my hopes.

  25. Say: I will take no substitute

    for one whose like is scarce upon the earth.

  26. Do you not behold Ahmad,

    unmatched in his exalted glory?

  27. The West brought him forth;

    now show us his peer, O East!

Sol 5.6