Sol 6.1

  1. In recalling the gazelles of Salʿ and al-Naqā,

    I stirred a sorrowful man and made a yearning man yearn.

  2. Indeed, I stretched sorrow’s hand toward forgetfulness,

    but found patience’s reach too short to attain it.

  3. The age of old pledges only increases my yearning,

    as does Babylonian wine when aged.

  4. O Saʿd, is Lamya smiling late at night,

    or is that the lightning of al-Abraqayn flashing?

  5. Not every flash shines above their ruined dwellings,

    but I was given a heart full of longing.

  6. Separation ruled unjustly; I was bereft of all

    except a gloater, and found all except a sympathizer.

  7. Wealth and beautiful women betrayed us; they were not

    the first to cast aside a binding pledge.

  8. So, because of her, union became a strained effort,

    reproach watered-down, and affection mere flattery.

  9. May I never win the oryxes atop the riding camels,

    if my heart has found rest or my tears have ceased.

  10. And behind those pale camels is a bewildered lover’s heart,

    which has found no liberator from yearning’s bondage.

  11. Parched, it begs my tears to quench its burning thirst,

    and long has the captive begged the one set free.

  12. And a languid-eyed woman: the white blades in her sheaths

    are as deadly as the dark eyes beneath her lids—she cannot be warded off.

  13. A dusky beauty bends the dusky lances with her curving form,

    more unerring in piercing armored warriors, and more graceful.

  14. She spread her tresses, and her figure was swayed

    by youth’s prime: it swayed a leafy bough.

  15. An idol among idols: passion commands us

    always to love her, while piety forbids us.

  16. My infatuation with the beauty-marked woman is not newly born,

    so as to be appended to beauty’s lineage.

  17. At twenty, she withheld beauty’s alms in their

    entirety, though I was a penniless wayfarer.

  18. My heart belongs to existence, whether staying or departing

    with her, and my eyelid, whether withholding or spending tears.

  19. We kept learning what her eyelid could do,

    until it struck, though its arrow had not been nocked.

  20. How many a visit in which her breaths came to fullness!

    And fragrance need only waft to tell its tale.

  21. And many a dark night I wore out, after

    weariness had exhausted our steeds and she-camels,

  22. with men swaying from sleeplessness, as though

    they begrudged spilling the remainder of its cup.

  23. The pale camels share their affliction; yet its drunkenness

    singled out the men’s necks and the camels’ legs.

  24. Each rider sits upright; then, if he is bent

    by sleep’s drowsiness, he makes his elbow a pillow.

  25. Like the green sea’s depths, they never plunged into it

    except for pearls of carefully chosen speech.

  26. In it, they accompanied the Fish of the stars as it swam,

    and the Eagle soaring in the expanse of the sky,

  27. where the riding camels were like ships, and their sea,

    like Salah al-Din’s bounty, spread everywhere and covered all.

Sol 6.1