Sol 5.6

  1. Turn aside awhile at Wadi al-‘Aqiq,

    toward al-Hasab, coming from Mina;

  2. behold the tents of those encamped there,

    and ask their dwellers within:

  3. Do you know one maddened by love,

    wasted away by them, though they are the wasting sickness?

  4. And ask them: who is this man

    who, before us, ever broke free of them?

  5. Is it fair that they break faith with anyone

    other than one who has wronged them?

  6. For I am he who among them went on

    meeting injury with kindness.

  7. They forsook me; I held fast. They made promises,

    then broke them; I kept faith with them.

  8. Ah, how lovely—a lightning flash that journeyed by night

    from Layla’s quarter toward us,

  9. setting the robes of darkness ablaze,

    as I made for a track-effacing waste.

  10. And many a waste that blotted out the light,

    where no resting-place for camels could be found!

  11. Like falcons banking on the wing,

    that saw the glow of our spacious camp;

  12. or like startled gazelles, and like swords

    stripped of their sheaths.

  13. My friend, our she-camels yearned

    toward the uplands by the winding pass.

  14. They spent the night braving its blaze; then one

    fled this way, another that.

  15. Our she-camels felt a longing for

    noble Layla—the very longing we felt.

  16. From atop the camel-saddles we feared the flash

    of lightning, lest it wrench us away,

  17. shaking her beneath us

    and shaking us upon her back.

  18. The wilderness’s jinn came to know us there,

    and its winds complained of weariness.

  19. Had Solomon attempted to cross it,

    he would have fallen short and turned back.

  20. From our midst, the stars kept rising

    and setting beneath the radiance.

  21. Throughout its inner reaches we found

    nothing but stagnant watering holes.

  22. My company sent her racing upon

    the saddles of pale camels, swift as doom.

  23. Before reaching the way-stations, they dismounted;

    our eyes plunged ahead, then shied away.

  24. She joined her noonday marches to night travel,

    and her predawn travel to welcome rest,

  25. until she became as though she were

    a fallen bough, left lying, never to be gathered.

  26. When she drew near Layla’s landmarks,

    at dawn she surged onward, bearing us.

  27. She gazed upon her stopping places and strove

    along the paths of striving toward the goal we sought.

  28. O people of Layla, who, in pursuit of you,

    has ever become as infatuated as we?

  29. For I am the one who fell in love with you—

    would that you were I!

Sol 5.6