Sol 5.6

  1. I cannot forget a tender maiden who brought me glad news

    of a visit shortly before sunset.

  2. Then she gestured to me: “I shall never forget

    you—but on your account I fear my watcher.”

  3. So I smiled, then fell speechless, unable to return

    an answer, for my enraptured heart was pounding.

  4. So she withdrew until the guards’ eyes had dozed,

    heedless of us, and the beloved’s trysting hour arrived.

  5. Then she came, her jewel-bare neck held high,

    gliding with a graceful sway in the trailing folds of a fresh robe.

  6. She had removed her jewels and left her neck bare;

    then leaned toward me like a fresh, supple bough.

  7. How could a waft of perfume remain hidden beneath night’s darkness?

Sol 5.6