Sol 5.6

  1. Staying up to refine the sciences is sweeter to me

    than union with a beauty and the sweetness of an embrace;

  2. my swaying in rapture at solving a knotty problem

    is more delectable and sweeter than a cupbearer’s wine.

  3. The scratching of my pens across their pages

    is sweeter than the modes Dūkāʾ and ʿUshshāq;

  4. sweeter than a maiden’s tapping on her tambourine

    is my tapping, as I shake the sand from my pages.

  5. Am I to pass the dark night wakeful while you pass it

    asleep—then hope, after that, to catch up with me?

Sol 5.6