Sol 6

  1. These are the white camels; let them be driven with me toward Hājir.

    Weary, they head for the valley bend or turn toward Najd.

  2. They falter in the trackless waste, though they are lean.

    Hard driving has worn their flesh away, leaving them like dusky ostriches.

  3. Five days without water, the steady march has worn them thin; whenever

    They complain of thirst, my tears become their watering place.

  4. Their hooves scatter roses across the desert,

    And their swift pace strings them behind them into a necklace.

  5. O our neighbors at al-Raqmatayn, you have broken

    My pledges, though I kept faith with our covenant long after you left.

  6. َ

    You went far away, and I have an eye harmed by weeping;

    You departed, and what I feel across the distance will not grow calm.

  7. Who can help with a passion whose flames never die down,

    When the wind brings me coolness scented with you?

  8. Though I see love as wandering astray, my longing for you is guidance;

    And in someone like you, I count the folly of chaste love as wisdom.

  9. How lovely are the myrtle and the willow of the two valleys,

    As the east wind sways their pliant branches.

  10. It is as though those slender figures, swaying as they walk,

    Lent their bending motion to that willow and myrtle.

  11. The coolness of sweet saliva has left me wasted,

    Until my limbs can no longer bear the cold.

  12. I was free before I knew desire,

    But once I knew love, I became its slave.

  13. My two beloveds, the separation has lasted long, and the camels rush onward,

    Lean, carrying us straight toward your land.

  14. It is as though the journey strikes them with a blow that will not let go,

    Wearing them down with its pace, as longing for you has worn me down.

  15. I have always feared separation and distance from you;

    Yet who has never met with separation or distance?

  16. I foolishly reproach my heart over those I love,

    While my very liver burns in the fire of passion.

  17. If only the wind blowing from their land

    Would bring a promise of the time of their return.

  18. God help me with this longing: whenever I say its final pangs

    Have passed, it brings back what it first began.

  19. It is as though I can find no escape from the searing pain of separation,

    From what I suffer, or from loving them.

  20. O place my longing seeks, I remember your dwelling bright

    And lovely, where we soothed our aching eyes.

  21. I kissed a mouth of gleaming teeth in your grounds,

    And among the willow trees drew close a figure as slender as theirs.

  22. There I spent a life delicate in its texture;

    Who could restore it to me, even if I could call it back?

  23. How has time altered your beauty and turned

    The white light of nearness in your courtyards to black?

  24. And a tall she-camel turned away from the watering place after

    A barrier appeared to her before the people of the protected camp.

  25. She and I, as she sped through the ghada trees

    Toward the loved ones’ campsite at a hurried pace, were like

  26. A shooting star and an arrow amid the timbers of her saddle;

    The curved backs of the camels cast me alone into the heart of the wilderness.

  27. If, in loving Juml, I find no kindness toward my passion,

    And Suʿdā does not favor me with her happiness,

  28. I have a model in those of old who loved ardently:

    They too came to longing’s spring, again and again.

  29. Parting and abandonment: how often I bore them with resolve,

    And how often their twin fires overcame stronger hearts before mine.

  30. How many arrows of glances come from those who shun me,

    Piercing even layered mail after piercing my innards.

  31. Those languid, ailing glances have made me ill, as though

    Sickness passed to me from them, or they infected me.

  32. And the rose of cheeks whose color puts roses to shame,

    Flushed and glistening with the moisture of youth.

  33. Whenever I seek a match for the beauty mark on her cheek,

    I see no equal to it, no peer at all.

Sol 6