Sol 5.6

  1. A rift has laid your heart waste—a rift that will not heal;

    a tear that will not stay hidden has betrayed your patience.

  2. So they broke with you, fearing you might betray their secrets;

    what use is the world to you when they have cut you off—

  3. your heart’s beloveds—while illnesses lay me low?

    I am not one whose journey in love has any near end.

  4. Can those nights of ours that passed away be restored,

    or, with you, can our days of old be renewed—

  5. when my youthful nature was supple to every stirring,

    ever drawn by refinement and nobility?

  6. Seasons of fellowship that Time brought to their close in happiness,

    as though they were an embroidered border on the hem of his robe.

  7. They would have passed like clouds, had there not remained within my heart

    a blaze from the lightning-flashes of hopes for their return.

  8. Though they forgot them, those covenants were held sacred for their sake;

    they are the theme of my secret and public speech among humankind.

  9. What harm would it have done them—while fires of sorrow burn in my breast—

    to have pitied the joy I take in them?

Sol 5.6