Sol 6.1

  1. You mocked my affliction and laid bare what I kept hidden.

    And you divulged my secret, failing my expectations.

  2. And added a bone-shattering wound to my open wound.

    Yet your duty is to help me forget through comfort.

  3. The beloved who draws me into sorrow

    Is not the beloved who consoles me in it.

  4. My eye weeps blood in grief for its sister.

    So if you can bring her back, help me.

  5. My patience in love is buried in its soil,

    While sorrow lives above it, unburied.

  6. Weeping is assured for my eyes

    Tomorrow, but my heart's solace is not assured.

  7. For if I was steadfast, enduring the days,

    When I was alone with my beloved, free from sorrow,

  8. A person is known only in his hardship;

    Before adversity, he is hidden behind doors.

  9. I used to marvel at Qays and his anguish;

    Today, Qays and Ghaylan both fall short of me.

  10. Were it not for acceptance of the unfolding decree, I would have died of grief,

    Or lived among the jinn, or in a madman's guise.

  11. Who can find me a woman pure in both her robes, veiling her

    Cheeks—for reason is not safe from her?

  12. She did not disgrace her children or her parents, nor

    Did she disgrace me among men when I contended.

  13. Trustworthy, she guarded her solitude in reverence for God,

    Trustworthy in deed, in worldly life and in faith.

  14. She guards my honor before my eyes and in my presence,

    Since her nature said, 'Daughter of nobility, guard it.'

  15. The treacherous nights have cheated me of her;

    Without those nights, I would not have been cheated.

  16. I accept what the Creator has decreed for her and for us,

    For we are only children of water and clay.

  17. Like beasts, with the world our pasture,

    We graze and drink water for a while.

  18. We travel through this world in peril,

    Like a ship sailing through a deep sea of humiliation.

  19. The slightest thing hurts us; what gladdens us is

    A little money, or less than the least.

  20. We know neither what remains of us nor our outcome

    In it, as though we were packhorses among packhorses.

  21. The minds within us are of no use;

    Far from it—an unsound mind cannot help.

  22. O Lord, grant Your pardon! In You I trust.

    I rely neither on my deeds nor on my faith.

  23. Be generous to me, and save Ali from tomorrow's torment;

    Protect him in this world, and save me.

  24. For he is my treasure, my help, my brother, my confidant;

    If I call him in calamities, he answers me.

  25. Every loss is easy for me to bear,

    If he remains—tell them, 'Be grave or light.'

Sol 6.1