Sol 6.1

  1. Welcome to a phantom who visited after his estrangement;

    He rode passion and drew near despite his hostility.

  2. Time's necklaces were scattered on the night of his bridal arrival,

    And lightning smiles across the broad expanses of his sky.

  3. A wedding of dreams was ushered to my eye;

    In it, the full moon was led in bridal procession through its darkness.

  4. So he came sweeter than slumber to an eye

    That lay sleepless, and like guidance to one astray.

  5. A moon that moved from the clouds of his veil

    On the day of farewell into the moonless darkness of his tent.

  6. My heart and eye are his two homes; only

    We fear his lodging in the eye because of its storms.

  7. And welcome to a bān bough, the narcissus of whose gaze

    Was, on the day we met, the thorn of the rose of his modesty.

  8. He is pleased and grows angry: a giver of life, a killer,

    In his two states, through his union and his estrangement.

  9. He has a face whose water is chilled by its fire,

    And he lights the ember of its fire within its water.

  10. He took sleep captive, so I made my passion an intercessor

    On its behalf, while tears were among those he set free.

  11. His prolonged skittishness gave the young gazelle a share of itself,

    And he endowed the bān bough with some of his proud sway.

  12. O reproacher of the sorrowful lover, whose heart

    Holds the secret of ʿUdhrī love in its black core:

  13. Tears would not have been so cheap, had they not

    Bargained for union, which rebuffed them with its high price.

  14. And among the wonders is that the Nile of his tears

    Keeps rising, while drought lies within his innards.

  15. Had you tasted the savor of his nearness and his distance,

    You would distinguish longing's ease from its anguish.

  16. The gazelles of the bend were guarded by its lions,

    And my bitterest complaint is the slaughter wrought by its gazelles.

  17. Their glances did to us—though they were friends—

    What Salah al-Din's sword-edges did to his enemies.

Sol 6.1