Sol 6.1

  1. I hid the whiteness of my gray hair with dye,

    nor did I mean by this to feign youth.

  2. But I wore it as mourning black,

    and did so because I grieved for my youth.

  3. It is the beloved that bade me farewell against my will,

    and vanished; I have no hope of its return.

  4. My gray hair pressed upon the prime of youth

    with a fang that never shrinks from slaughter.

  5. The coming of gray hair saddled the she-camel of my life,

    and it departed, bidding farewell to union with full-breasted maidens.

  6. And the hairs, when they appeared white,

    were like spear-thrusts in my heart.

  7. The time of youth passed; in its place I received

    enduring sorrow over it, and dejection.

  8. Ah, how lovely was the time now past,

    so worthy of praise, between Zaynab and al-Rabab!

  9. There, the bough of life was tender,

    leafy and flourishing, its fresh dates within reach.

  10. And no raven croaked of our parting,

    and the hair was black as a raven.

  11. Complaint leafed out between us, and was

    as delicate as the tears of a wine strainer.

  12. For gray hair has unfolded the book of rejection by the

    beloved ones, and the pages of reproach have been folded away.

  13. O whiteness of gray hair, you have blackened my face;

    so I show no favor in blackening your face.

  14. Are you not the one who made me worth-

    less in the eyes of freeborn women and whores?

  15. I am not to be blamed for blackening your face,

    even if I blackened it with dog shit.

  16. Ah, friend, I am not sober:

    I grew drunk on gray hair, without wine.

  17. For my drunkenness comes from gray hair that settled with me,

    like an owl hooting among ruins.

  18. The book of gray hair is white on black,

    and this is the reverse of customary writing.

  19. I see it as a petition submitted to one

    who, in answering me, signs a decree of anguish for me.

  20. Whenever my gray hair draws the sword of disfigurement,

    I return it to its sheath with dye.

  21. But what can I do when it comes

    with surging magic, its flood immense?

  22. The lamps of gray hair fell by night,

    and wreaked havoc among the devils of youth.

  23. For the suns of slender maidens have turned away from me,

    as the sun turns away from a shooting star's plight.

Sol 6.1