Sol 6

  1. Night demolished what day had built.

    And the lights yielded to darkness.

  2. The universe went on drinking night like a cup,

    A marvelous cup whose bubbles were moons.

  3. The clamor became a dreadful silence,

    Crowded with ghosts and secrets.

  4. Where did day go? How did night

    Come, and why the radiance, why the darkness?

  5. It is the struggle for survival that sweeps through creation,

    The young and the old alike.

  6. And hearts collapsed in the two horizons,

    As hearts flew through the two horizons.

  7. A headlong world, a scattered fate,

    And a struggle that turns even gray hair gray.

  8. Here is a heart that worships bread and water,

    Its dreams all wounds and scars.

  9. It bleeds, yet finds no tear

    With which the lonely stranger might console himself.

  10. When it longs for what others shun,

    Even flourishing gardens are barren.

  11. And there is the drunken reveler,

    Whom the devil himself has raised.

  12. What others find impossible becomes possible

    In his hands, and his word is the final judgment.

  13. For him life is a cup, a fair maiden,

    And a sea whose waves are songs.

  14. He commands whenever he wishes to command,

    And the wishes of his mind hold sway.

  15. If he wishes, life is turmoil;

    And if he wishes, life is peace.

  16. I said, O soul, this is a decree

    Ordained by heaven before existence.

  17. I did not choose existence before I existed,

    And after existence, I must perish against my will.

  18. I see the palace as the cottage's twin, except

    That one is poverty and the other wealth.

  19. I see myself as a light to the palace's owner,

    Though in his eyes I am darkness.

  20. If I die, a noble art dies;

    If he dies, he is clay and water.

  21. My soul said: The world of wishes

    Is humanity's world of immortality.

  22. Live in it and forget that your life has passed

    In a hell of passion and humiliation.

  23. It will show you the ruined cottage as a palace,

    With spreading shade and soaring walls.

  24. And threadbare clothing will become silk,

    Regal in its shades and colors.

  25. I said, What of bitter reality? She replied:

    That sickness is treated with forgetting.

  26. So I folded up the years and days

    Into a radiant, smiling dream.

  27. I ceased to know time, for it was dust,

    And forgot place and dimensions.

  28. When my spirit grew transparent, I saw a palace

    Whose beauty challenged dreams,

  29. And gardens where birds sang

    And poured out melodies moist with love,

  30. And servants singing many tunes

    Within the palace grounds, prostrate and standing.

  31. I followed the guide, who was a vision

    That had lived for ages in the world of wishes.

  32. What lofty art, what invention!

    How beautiful and exalted its maker!

  33. The statues were like people; they almost

    Swayed with grace and charm.

  34. And the silent gazelles called to the beholder,

    Who knelt before them in awe.

  35. Art breathed its spirit into their beauty

    And clothed them in majesty and grace.

  36. I lived in poverty like an obeyed prince,

    A poet in my desires and ambitions.

  37. My whole world was pleasure and beauty,

    And a rush toward passion and delight.

  38. Among wide-eyed maidens and cups of wine,

    And songs with a heavenly rhythm,

  39. With companions like flowers, seeking my favor

    And fearing my anger and impetuousness.

  40. They shared my glory and thought my bliss

    Eternal, with no hint of loss.

  41. O my companions, while the nights oppress me,

    I feel a longing to weep.

  42. Empty the wine cups, for my heart

    Nearly flies away from what it fears.

  43. I fear the collapse of my glory and hope

    That fate will spare us its upheavals.

  44. O companions, alas for my heart and mind!

    There is the earth turning beneath the building.

  45. Alas for my palace, as the wind raged in the sky

    And dug graves for its inhabitants!

  46. The wind rose, stormy and grim,

    And turned the polished palace into a memory.

  47. Perhaps that palace was only

    A dream whose joy and life were brief.

  48. My soul deceived me with what I had wished

    For. Was what I wished for evil?

  49. Or was I formed from the clay of misery,

    So that my spirit sees paradises as wasteland?

  50. Or have I plundered the dreams of others,

    While my own soul has other wishes for time?

  51. Then a voice shook my stillness:

    You erred in your wishing, my suspicious thoughts.

  52. I said, O soul; my soul replied, Let me be.

    I wished for nothing but water and clay.

  53. That palace and those companions are dust

    When you wake to death's cry.

  54. Rise above the glitter of this world and cleanse yourself

    With the divinity of love and the arts.

  55. In art lie my strength and my immortality,

    And my certainty when certainty fails me.

  56. As youth dreams of love,

    And flowers yearn for breezes,

  57. I began building my glory in the world of illusion

    Above the wreckage passion had left of me.

  58. Illusions carried me through the veils

    To a lofty world of light,

  59. Where Olympus stood, and there played

    Goddesses of sanctities and sins.

  60. Offerings from the children of art were brought forth,

    Born of thoughts and dreams.

  61. O my wishes, endure; O soul, be glad:

    All of art has become my portion.

  62. How may I reach the god, lord of songbirds,

    Apollo, to fill my cup with immortality

  63. And crown my head with what

    His hand has woven of blossoms and perfumes?

  64. Then from the edge of the horizon there reached me

    A call like a lover's whisper:

  65. O stranger at heart, you are welcome;

    A guest of Olympus is no stranger.

  66. That call rang in my ears

    And coursed like flame through my heart.

  67. It was as though I had torn off my garment of earth

    And crossed the sky as an exalted spirit.

  68. It was as though I had become, in history's mind,

    A winged, sacred meaning,

  69. When I found myself sharing with my dreams

    The pure, fresh nectar of immortality.

  70. And the maidens of Venus danced around me

    And praised my everlasting art.

  71. Then they went to the temple of the gods,

    Where they crowned my youth with immortality.

  72. They sang to the god Apollo

    A verse preserved through the ages:

  73. Everything in existence is a work of art;

    All will perish, and dominion belongs to the Giver.

  74. Yet life through thought is divine,

    Free and without limit.

  75. Every servant within it is a little god,

    Rising higher through earnest effort.

  76. I would have wished to live my life

    Among those leafy paradises.

  77. But the earthly bond exhausted me,

    So I left the world of goddesses.

  78. I descended to the wretched earth like an ascetic

    Entering places of desire.

  79. I began the struggle amid the crowd of the living,

    Seeking these scraps.

  80. My support was brilliant thoughts

    And inspiration coming from the heavens.

  81. Misery had never entered my mind,

    Nor fear of the changes of night.

  82. I was like a child in gentleness and modesty,

    Drawn toward the sky of imagination.

  83. I thought the earth was my paradise alone,

    Where I could have whatever hopes I wished.

  84. Then my paradise proved a mirage, and my hopes

    A wilderness clamoring with terrors.

  85. Then I found myself facing time alone,

    Burdened by the days.

  86. My presence added to this earth

    Only a bird that soars above confinement.

  87. Its concerns are love, springs, and the nest,

    And the whispered song of its singing companion.

  88. I am a bird of the arts; what is my fault

    That I must live the life of an exile?

  89. Is it because I live for art that I go unclothed,

    While the son of clay rests comfortably in fine clothes?

  90. How degrading life is, if my sin

    Is renouncing the jewel people worship.

  91. These terrors shook my senses,

    Until hope and despair became equal to me.

  92. My soul and I awoke from the dream,

    In which so many of my days and evenings were lost.

  93. If only, O soul, while realities make us weep,

    We had found in the dream what could make us forget.

  94. If only, O my thoughts, with my world a sea,

    You had anchored where realities come to rest.

  95. Many a dream I wished could live for an age

    Departed, and its passing gave birth to misery.

  96. You, O soul, are the secret of this suffering:

    You raised my glory on a foundation of dust.

  97. From the sky of imagination I returned to feed

    On the soil of hateful reality.

  98. And here is the cottage; take comfort in its shelter

    And in the beauty of untouched nature.

  99. This whole existence is a palace built by God

    Between His earth and the sky.

  100. So let me live as the fates have willed,

    Alive, though my life's continuance leads to death.

Sol 6