Sol 5.6

  1. Between the heart’s core and the wide eyes rages a war of love;

    and because of that war, the heart lies despoiled.

  2. A dark-lipped, dusky-lipped beauty—honey-sweet is her mouth;

    the bees bear witness by the blows they undergo.

  3. Full-fleshed at the anklet, she is deep darkness over a moon;

    in her cheek is twilight, a bough rising over dunes.

  4. A beauty adorned with jewels—not one who can dispense with them;

    she smiles, revealing hail-white teeth, lustrous with fresh, cool sweetness.

  5. She turns away in earnest, yet dallies playfully with love;

    and death lies between that earnestness and play.

  6. Whenever night draws dark, there comes behind it

    the breath of dawn, as surely known through the ages.

  7. Nor does the east wind pass over a garden

    sheltering nubile, secluded, loving maidens

  8. without swaying them and, in its gentle breathing, disclosing

    the blossoms and tender boughs they bear.

  9. I asked the east wind about them, that she might bring me word.

    She said, “What need have you of tidings?

  10. At al-Abraqayn, at Bark al-ʿImād, and at

    Bark al-Ghamim, I left the tribe close at hand.

  11. No land can contain them.” So I said to her,

    “Where is escape, when longing’s cavalry is in pursuit?”

  12. Far from it! They have no being save within my soul;

    wherever I am, there the full moon will be—so watch.

  13. Are not her rising place, her very self, and her setting place

    my heart? Then gone is the evil omen of the bān tree—departure—and the gharab tree—estrangement.

  14. The raven has no croak within our dwellings,

    nor any lament amid the harmonious union of our company.

Sol 5.6