Sol 6.1

  1. O Hind, do not mock me,

    or marvel at my gray hair,

  2. or recoil like the young

    gazelle, nasal-voiced and tenderly reared.

  3. For time has given me the

    hawk in place of the raven-black one.

  4. So I have no claim on fair women,

    nor any share in their love.

  5. I complain to God of the burning

    anguish of the passion within me.

  6. The loved ones’ dwelling—a call rang out

    within it from the herald of calamities.

  7. I stood in the dwelling, weeping,

    and not a soul was there.

  8. I questioned its echo there

    with a sorrowful lover’s question.

  9. So I said, “Where is my beloved?”

    And it said, “Where is my beloved?”

  10. Rise, and give me wine, unmixed,

    unveiled in a goblet and a cup:

  11. red, grizzled, a virgin,

    not wine made from raisins.

  12. For her taste upon my palate

    is like the taste of the beloved’s saliva.

  13. All people yearn for her—

    their young men and the gray-haired.

  14. She and the water embraced

    in the fertile glass.

  15. She bound her brow with bubbles

    like pierced pearls.

  16. So she bequeathed within it the secret of

    joy, by agnatic inheritance.

  17. The heady wine strikes the face

    with a frown born of her laughter.

  18. She creeps through my body—

    oh, how lovely is that creeping!

  19. Whenever my right hand mounts her,

    it routs the armies of sorrow.

  20. And the cares in my breast

    make ready to flee.

  21. A moon passes her round, embodied in

    a slender bough atop a sand dune.

Sol 6.1