Sol 6.1

  1. I have no strength against the gazelles' glances.

    The rain fell, and the two clans became neighbors.

  2. A love-stricken man, seized by longing, has no strength

    against that clan's lions and gazelles.

  3. They veiled the figures with their like: swaying

    spears before the gracefully swaying boughs.

  4. They sent dream-visions to a yearning, love-distraught man,

    his breast consumed with passion, his eyelids sleepless.

  5. And they barred the eyes from sleep, and left

    within the ribs deposits of sorrow.

  6. What harm to the woman among the ghada trees—may the ghada be watered—

    if that beauty were adorned with kindness?

  7. She freed my imprisoned tears by forsaking me,

    and decreed the taking of consolation's last breath.

  8. Do you think the time of union I once knew will return,

    at the valley bend, safe from estrangement?

  9. Or shall I pluck the roses of cheeks, and behold

    those full moons upon the ban-tree boughs?

  10. O dwellers in my sorrowful heart—for among them

    are the familiarity of home and the fellowship of neighbors.

  11. You laid waste the dwelling of solace by forsaking me,

    yet homes flourish through their inhabitants.

  12. Do not object that I have complained to you,

    for to you I complain of keeping silent.

  13. I placed my hopes in you, but was denied what I hoped for;

    and I looked to you with hope, but returned deprived.

  14. And I was forsaken the day I called on you at the first Suwayqa,

    and at this other one near Usfan.

  15. And indeed I wept for a bereaved bird of the thicket,

    who spread varied strains of grief among the boughs.

  16. She lamented, and we were full of longing; yet she

    spoke openly of the sorrows I conceal.

  17. She complains to me of the sorrow in her cooing; yet futile

    is the free one's complaint to a fettered prisoner.

  18. And my torment is lush with the water of youth—

    if only it could quench the thirsty one's burning thirst!

  19. Swaying, intoxicated, supple of flank—

    oh, my sorrow for the swaying, intoxicated one!

  20. His eyelids stole the lovers' sleep;

    so he is always like one half asleep.

  21. He has a crimson cheek around his facial down,

    and just so are Nu'man's anemones.

  22. Water and fire: because of him my heart has fallen into

    fire, and my eye, because of him, into a flood.

  23. A fawn: I disobeyed my reproachers and obeyed him;

    yet he obeyed my reproachers concerning me, and disobeyed me.

  24. An idol I circle, though a monotheist and a Muslim,

    like a man of the pre-Islamic age circling idols.

  25. My tears and the clouds are alike over a graceful youth;

    the moon at its full and his face are alike.

  26. Show me a single equal to him in beauty,

    or an equal to Fakhr al-Din among the horsemen.

Sol 6.1