Sol 5.6

  1. Ah, my two companions—is it lightning that has appeared

    to us at al-Thaniyya, or Saʿdā’s abode?

  2. It blazed when she smiled in the dead of night,

    and rent the shirt of night’s gloom from end to end.

  3. What a wondrous mouth, showing us whenever

    it smiles a necklace made of those pearls!

  4. A gazelle guards it from every sip—crescent-like

    in brow and face, and bough-like in stature.

  5. She is the arrow: if you aim to draw her near

    to the heart’s abode, she only grows more distant.

  6. May God drench her old abode with a downpour,

    unceasing—though she herself kept no covenant.

  7. How long must I endure, for love of her,

    sorrows, consuming passion, and ardent longing?

  8. Shall I turn from her dwelling at al-Ḥimā

    in folly, and leave her for one settled in Najd?

  9. The nectar in her mouth leaves hearts

    ever more parched and thirsty, the cooler it grows.

  10. O arrow of her glances—how unerring!

    And O my body’s sickness because of her—how severe!

Sol 5.6