Sol 5.6

  1. By my soul, infatuation with beauty may be excused;

    But the sin of seeking oblivion in love is never forgiven.

  2. A beauty by whom the love-distraught have prolonged my yearning—

    For whom the reproachers, once they saw her, ceased their blame.

  3. A countenance saluted with souls whenever it appears,

    And offered souls as gifts the moment it casts a glance.

  4. Every beauty has attained perfection in her; yet I see

    That, for all my love, I still fall short of doing her justice.

  5. I am enthralled by one of humankind’s gazelles, possessed of glances

    From which Harut learned how to bewitch.

  6. Slender and languid-eyed, she sways beneath her ornaments

    As sways a tender bough while it is in bloom.

  7. So closely veiled that, if the full moon peered into her chamber,

    It would see that earth’s full moon was fairer and more dazzling.

  8. Within her a sun shines, and a supple sapling sways;

    A ringdove warbles, and a young gazelle casts glances.

  9. From her, with every lovely grace, a garden blooms,

    Yet for me it bears no fruit of union.

  10. Her face, a crescent, defies the crescent’s accustomed law:

    At sight of it the waist fasts, while the haunch breaks its fast.

  11. In neck and eye she shows you a desert gazelle,

    So that she shies from a lover is no wonder.

  12. She has a supple waist—if only it had taught her heart to yield,

    My heart would not spend the night breaking from burning pangs.

  13. And a golden body so delicate that it is nearly marked

    Merely when I say of it, “It takes a mark.”

  14. And a cheek—whenever I think upon its delicacy,

    I fear that very thought may make it bleed.

  15. An eye whose languor resembles the weakness of a reproacher’s case

    Against love—or the weakness of my patience when she shuns me.

  16. It keeps all mortal eyelids wakeful, though itself asleep,

    And guides along love’s path while itself bewildered.

  17. Naturally dark-lashed; kohl only heightened its assault,

    As an Indian sword is burnished though already of watered steel.

  18. She smiles, revealing a dark-lipped mouth whose ordered row seems

    Carnelian and pearls adorned with emerald.

  19. Within it light takes bodily form as flowers, continually bathed in

    Pure water, wine, honey, and ambergris.

  20. It enchants as a smile—and what a smile!—as though it were

    A radiant dawn, or daisies all aglow.

  21. She has decreed that the last remnant of my life dissolve from thirst,

    Though her sweetest lips hold nectar and the river Kawthar.

  22. Can one hovering around them ever drink his fill, when her glance has barred the way?

    Can sweet water be approached when a keen sword is brandished above it?

  23. A man grows drunk when wine gives him drink; yet here am I,

    Thirsting for the wine of a dark-red mouth—why, then, am I drunk?

  24. When her necklaces and her words became equal in splendor,

    I could not tell—for every one of them is a jewel—

  25. Whether the necklace had been strung from that speech,

    Or the words were scattered from those strings of gems.

  26. So, O my reproacher concerning her, turn your mind among her qualities

    To four: through them, lose your reason—and excuse me.

  27. Honeyed speech attracts you, and a languid grace takes you captive;

    A swaying gait infatuates you, and a wide dark eye strikes you dead.

Sol 5.6