خُلُوُّ فؤادي بالمَوَدّةِ إخْلالُ
وإبْلاءُ جِسمي في طِلابِكِ إبْلالُ
For my heart to be empty of love would be a betrayal;
to wear out my body in seeking you is healing.
ولي حاجةٌ عنْد المنيّةِ فَتْكُها
برُوحيَ والأهواءُ مُذْ كُنّ أهْوالُ
I have a request of Death—let her fulfill it
by taking my soul; passions, ever since they existed, have been terrors.
إذا مُتُّ لم أحْفِلْ أبالشأم حُفْرَةٌ
حَوَتْنيَ أم ريمٌ برَيْمانَ مُنْهالُ
If I die, I care not whether a pit in Syria
holds me, or a crumbling grave at Raymān.
على أنّ قَلْبي آنِسٌ أنْ يُقال لي
إلى آلِ هذا القبر يَدفِنُك الآلُ
Still, my heart takes comfort when I am told:
“Beside this grave your kin will bury you.”
دعا اللّهُ أُمّاً لَيْتَ أنّي أمامَها
دُعيتُ ولو أنّ الهواجِرَ آصالُ
God has summoned my mother—would that, before her,
I had been summoned, even were scorching noons eventides.
مضَتْ وكأنّي مُرْضَعٌ وقد ارْتَقَتْ
بيَ السنُّ حتى شَكْلُ فَودَيّ أشْكالُ
She is gone, and I am like a nursing infant, though age has mounted
within me until the coloring of my temples has grown mottled.
أراني الكَرى أنّي أُصِبْتُ بناجِذٍ
ألا إنّ أحلامَ الرّقادِ لَضُلاّلُ
Slumber showed me myself afflicted in a molar;
indeed, the dreams of sleep are sheer delusion.
أجارِحَتِي العُظْمى تُشَبِّه ساهِياً
بِسنٍّ لها في ساحةِ الفَمِ أمْثالُ
Does slumber heedlessly compare my greatest limb
to a tooth that has peers in the courtyard of the mouth?
وبينَ الرَّدى والنوْم قُرْبَى وَنِسْبَةٌ
وشَتّانَ بُرْءٌ للنّفُوس وإعْلالُ
Between death and sleep there are kinship and affinity,
yet worlds apart are healing souls and making them ill.
إذا نِمْتُ لاقَيْتُ الأحِبّةَ بَعدما
طَوَتْهمْ شُهورٌ في الترابِ وأحوالُ
When I sleep, I meet the beloved, after
months and years have folded them away in the earth.
Sol 5.6