Sol 6.1

  1. Ask his full-moon face about the justice of its perfection

    toward my tearful eye and my love-bewildered heart.

  2. Or turn his eyebrow’s bow away from me [reading uncertain], for I have

    a liver exposed to the arrows he draws.

  3. Dark-lipped, slender of stature—I hope to slake my thirst with

    his honeyed mouth, and I fear his quivering spear.

  4. I infected his abode with sorrow; the bān trees are in

    its death throes, and the doves in its fetters.

  5. And I bore for him jealousy as heavy as his buttocks,

    when I saw his waist a sworn ally of his leanness.

  6. Rise, and borrow me a spell of sleep from one free of care [reading uncertain],

    for sleep is the means of reaching the phantom of his image.

  7. And when I sleep, it is only my own imagining;

    no dream has bestowed him on me, nor even his likeness.

  8. O you who clothe languor in the banner of his glance,

    and a sword’s cutting power is proved by the gleam of its point [reading uncertain].

  9. Have pity on an ailing lover whose sorrows you summoned:

    so you made them rise, yet sat back from fulfilling his hopes.

  10. Restless upon his beds—if you suffered the least of what

    he suffers, you would not find his wretched state pleasing.

Sol 6.1