Sol 5.6

  1. Set the steeds of youth galloping in the playground of delight;

    for the great trees are its banners, with tassels fluttering.

  2. Dawn’s smiling mouth is adorned by its stars,

    as bubbles adorn the goblet’s smiling rim.

  3. Rise, then, to meet those days of yours that bring delight;

    for if a day of pleasure passes you by, it never returns.

  4. The breeze, too, makes signs whose true meanings

    are understood from the ben-tree’s boughs and the dunes.

  5. Above the grove’s branches, the birds sing aloud,

    like a yearning lover singing to his absent beloveds.

  6. Brace yourself: I have milked Time from both its udders,

    and found no rest except after toil.

  7. Hopes have tales, and sweetest among them

    is the one whose chain of transmission lies closest to falsehood.

  8. Youth indeed—do not be deceived by its companionship—

    is the beauties’ brother, frail in promise and fidelity.

  9. Let no lofty goal deter you by the height to which it rises:

    how often a place far from rainclouds has become a watering place.

  10. Pearls would never be prized but for leaving their homeland,

    nor did the full moon become complete until it strove in quest.

  11. Ah, may God torment this heart of mine—how fiercely I struggle with it,

    toward salvation, while it outruns me toward ruin.

  12. Your consuming passion wanders through every valley and races,

    after every graceful beauty, honey-sweet of dusky lips and fresh of teeth—

  13. love-drunk, he fears my reproach, so I make him blush,

    and the white silver becomes overlaid with gold.

  14. Passion is sweet, though its consequences turn bitter,

    just as the itch of mange both pleases and hurts.

  15. On an overcast day, the drinkers’ hands behold a marvel,

    when the limpid water clothes itself in flame.

  16. The eyelids of the life-giving rain weep while the rose smiles,

    and the hills, unveiled, disclose a wondrous prospect.

  17. The pearl of dew enhances the worth of its counterpart—

    if only it did not melt when the clouds part.

  18. Whenever the hand of any beauty reaches for it

    to adorn her necklace, it neither grasps it nor comes away empty-handed.

  19. Now dawn’s light has climbed an ascending path,

    as night’s wing descended a downward slope.

  20. The lightning and the lofty cloud—you would take them

    for battle-dust around al-Nasir’s keen, slender swords.

Sol 5.6