Sol 6.1

  1. Are these blades unsheathed for us from eyelids,

    or gazelles casting glances, or wide-eyed houris?

  2. Are these faces turned toward us, or suns

    on branches, poised between straightness and suppleness?

  3. Each enchantress tosses Harut

    and Marut about amid her eyelids' spell-breath,

  4. from among the daughters of the Turks, ample of haunch,

    and yet slender of belly.

  5. My longing called me to maidens

    who captivate the devout with their coquetry.

  6. O my drinking companion, do you not see the preachers—

    the gray doves—mounting pulpits of branches?

  7. And they say: bring on the

    wine from Ma'rabun or Halbun,

  8. a wine that banishes cares from the heart

    and brings joy to the sorrowful.

  9. And the bubbles are like a beloved's mouth,

    smiling to reveal hidden pearls.

  10. The Creator fashioned it—He who, if He wills a thing,

    brings it into being between kāf and nūn.

  11. Bring virgin wine, in labor with the embryo of

    intoxication—God be praised for such an embryo!

  12. Indeed, the lovely rose's life is brief;

    so, before death, seize the sweetness of the moment,

  13. amid a lute, a reed flute, and a harp,

    and the qanun's physician, healing with the qanun.

  14. Who will shield me from the tyranny of a wide-eyed, dark-lipped beloved,

    at the Canal Gate in Jayrun?

  15. And he is my neighbor, house beside house, yet

    he is as far from me as the sands of Yabrin.

  16. If you saw me, his hair in my left hand

    and strong wine, mixed, in my right,

  17. you would see the serpent, the sun, the antidote,

    and the gazelle—the prey of a lion in his den.

  18. And indeed, the bells in the monastery stirred

    my heart, so I became like a madman.

  19. And the blackbirds, like monks, recite

    the Psalms with wondrous melody.

  20. And the yellow songbird's whistle sings a song

    expressing ardent love and yearning.

  21. And the nightingales, the bulbuls, and the gray doves

    on the spreading trees reveal their sorrows.

  22. And when the nightingale calls, we think

    it has recited the clear verses of Ya-Sin.

Sol 6.1