Sol 5.6

  1. The gleaming lightning of al-Ḥimā reminds me

    of a lovely time at al-Ḥimā, now gone.

  2. My heart thrills to the breeze when it journeys by night,

    and that ring-necked dove enraptures me.

  3. May the bāna tree of al-Jarʿāʾ—should the rain fail

    and hold back—be watered by a shower streaming from my tears.

  4. May no downpour ever turn aside from those beloved haunts,

    whether from the rainclouds, or poured lavishly from the lover’s eye.

  5. A little breeze makes me pine for his dwelling places;

    they bear a fragrance, and all their precincts breathe it.

  6. Away with my censor! How harshly he rebukes, for love,

    one bound to passion, whom yearning has overcome.

  7. Whenever he blames me, I quote this verse to him:

    I wish the censor might himself love—and fall passionately in love.

  8. I am enamored of a dusky, wide-eyed youth of the Turks,

    his branch-like figure leafed with flowing tresses,

  9. graceful in his sway and turns, dusky of—

    —lips; his glance strikes dead whenever it alights.

  10. He guards a rose-red cheek with the sword of his gaze;

    before it, the red anemones’ buds burst open.

  11. He has an eye within whose depths—though it is black—

    lurks a blue-steeled foe to every devotee of longing.

Sol 5.6