Sol 5.6

  1. Many a night I slipped out from its twin coal-black folds—

    I, the pale camels, the lances, and the lightning,

  2. blazing like the beat of a pulse, sweeping over

    an eye startled by the beloved’s night-visiting phantom.

  3. Ringdoves burst into lament at the death of night,

    bereaved mourners whose collars were their mourning dress.

  4. I laughed in gloating triumph, as though the

    dawn were a neckline torn open through the darkness.

  5. The East cast from it molten, uncoined gold,

    and the watered-steel grain of the rays flashed within it.

  6. The gentle south wind wandered over the gardens

    and bent the graceful branch’s slender waist.

  7. The soil seemed finely rubbed musk,

    and evening seemed a dawn split wide.

  8. There is only the savoring of life’s rare delights, until

    the graceful thing you desire arrays itself for you.

  9. Life is only the cooing of doves,

    choice wine blended by a beloved,

  10. a tender breath of the north wind,

    and an elegant sash woven of gardens;

  11. the fresh sheen of youth,

    and a delicate robe of breeze;

  12. beauty in a scattering of drizzle,

    amid meadows whose soil is khalūq perfume.

  13. Do not drink at passion’s watering-place—for des—

    —pair is your companion when the company rides away.

  14. When sorrow grows tyrannous, confront it with a flame

    that the wine-strainer draws from its firesteel—

  15. mixed by a hand that seemed to bear

    a shell in which lay pearl and carnelian.

Sol 5.6