Sol 5.6

  1. O haunts of my youth, time has not effaced you,

    nor has pure devotion waned in its love for you.

  2. And still, despite the wounds of ordeals,

    you are springs watering the barrenness of life.

  3. Toward your dew-fresh dawn the gaze has yearned,

    and in your sweet dream imagination lived.

  4. And here am I amid the wastes of fate,

    the echo of a song the nights never understood.

  5. If the hopes of youth should ask me

    about the light that dazzles the eyelids of darkness,

  6. I tell them: in my youth lies the answer,

    and in the melodies decay has folded away.

  7. I am the wandering-footed one, urging hope onward,

    yet hope has no place within my being.

  8. I am that riddle, not yet solved,

    whose sole manifestation is the voice of abasement.

  9. Who am I? Tell me, stars;

    and if you do not answer, you will not be blamed.

  10. Both of us have been worn down by nights of sorrow,

    lowly amid the procession’s crush.

  11. What are you or I in this world?

    Whether I vanish or you vanish, what would happen?

  12. My blood will water the inner walls of my grave,

    and the years will gnaw at your two sides.

  13. By your Lord, do not mock my weeping,

    for you are not one to trail tears behind you.

  14. You are only like the rest of my wishes,

    dying and being born between my ribs.

  15. I see you have tired of the sorrowful one’s call,

    though it is only a meteor that has gone dark.

  16. Then do not count among the years

    its nights after youth has passed.

  17. Who am I? Tell me, stars;

    and if you do not answer, then do not rise.

  18. Enough of life for me are these clouds,

    covering my sky and weeping with me.

  19. O One who stands alone in power,

    ordering my affairs as You will,

  20. release the prison-bird from its misery,

    for its misery will not end before its life does.

  21. I see life pressing onward in its stride,

    though the Releaser of its fetter need only will it.

  22. Perhaps what has passed from its serenity

    may restore to it what it had made it lose.

  23. Would that my spirit, despite its barrenness,

    might be relieved of the fierce dust-scattering winds;

  24. and would that my soul, there upon its knees,

    might be taught meanings other than mourning.

  25. The universe, like a living being, receives

    vipers of evil that never depart.

  26. Had my Lord willed, He would not have frightened me

    with them at every moment, as though I were accursed.

Sol 5.6