Sol 5.6

  1. You passed to my heart the languor borne by your eyelid,

    and through love’s wasting taught my body the slenderness of the waist.

  2. You left my tears upon my cheek as though they were

    your pearly teeth when you appeared, your mouth smiling.

  3. I beheld union’s dawn in your face—the face that

    appeared beneath hair I mistook for separation’s night,

  4. and makes love for you dear to me; I can scarcely

    liken it, in my verse, to anything but your beauty.

  5. A slender beauty, gazelle-like in neck and eye,

    cast a glance and swayed; I quailed before white blades and brown spears.

  6. I was envied for kissing the red anemone upon her cheek

    and sipping her mouth’s nectar, from which I have never ceased to be drunk.

  7. I do not fear the sorcery in her glances,

    for through Moses I have found safety from sorcery.

  8. A noble youth—should the Pharaoh of his poverty rebel, you would find him

    drowning that Pharaoh in a sea fed by the bounty of his two hands.

  9. In his White Hand is the greatest of signs,

    when days turn black with the calamities of Time.

Sol 5.6