Sol 6.1

  1. He traveled deep in the night, while the bright stars did not move,

    and the horizon yearned for dawn as lovers yearn.

  2. He came by night from a breast where slumber trots,

    and did not cease until my breast became his lodging for the night.

  3. He dwelt in my eyelids, wading through the depths of darkness;

    the sea's neighbor indeed sought a sea upon a sea.

  4. He shone forth, so we said, 'This is the night of the full moon.'

    And he lingered, so we said, 'This is the Night of Decree.'

  5. Nothing startled him but the vanguard of a procession

    of dawn, the fringes of its crimson banners fluttering,

  6. and chestnut horses from the eyelids, following one another;

    they did not cease until they breached my secret's sanctuary.

  7. He says, as my tears survey my ribs:

    'I marvel at this man, quenching embers with embers!'

  8. He turned away as night's hem receded in the west,

    and morning's neckline in the east had its button torn away.

  9. Sleep did not fear his eyelids, and so it visited me,

    nor did drowsiness, until he lined his eyes with magic.

  10. He struck the heart unknowingly with their arrow.

    A wondrous age: an archer strikes without knowing!

  11. Nor have I forgotten him, filling his waist-wrap, whom I favored;

    I committed no sin, but strengthened my back through him.

  12. He is scattered pearls as prose whenever his speech comes forth,

    yet strung as verse in grammar and at his mouth.

  13. He became full-hipped, untouched by love,

    and, to my ruin, weak in promise, gaze, and waist.

  14. Thus drowsy from languid eyelids, without sleep,

    and drunk on youth's night, without wine.

  15. How many reprovers lovers have over anyone but him,

    insistent—and how many excuses I find in his cheek-down!

  16. So the full moon falls short when measured against his beauty,

    as the dimmed stars fall short of the full moon.

  17. Ask my standing-place, and the clan of Malik's house,

    on Hajr's two sides—alas for me, what a stone!

  18. I contend with the forest's lion, while the lion shelters in his lair,

    yet I feel no fear for the egg of the curtained chamber.

  19. How many a fresh branch sways upon a sandhill,

    and how many a full moon rests upon a fresh branch!

  20. When their glances and figures are unsheathed,

    fair and brown-skinned women shelter behind white swords and brown spears.

  21. They jested, while love dealt earnestly with an enslaved lover

    who has fortitude, but not for patience's bitter aloe.

  22. May God water that dwelling with a cloud's abundant milk

    that restores wealth to the poverty of wastes and desert.

  23. Whenever it pauses to weep over the dwelling's courtyards,

    you would say, 'This is al-Khansa weeping for Sakhr.'

  24. I shed my tender youth in its chambers,

    and spent life's treasure in that monastery.

  25. Did you not see me weep in anguish over separation?

    And before that, I had already been weeping at foul speech.

Sol 6.1