Sol 5.6

  1. Who will rescue me from the tyranny of one sweet in every grace?

    I, in love with him, am the captive, the sufferer—

  2. captivating in speech, languid in glance, dark-lipped;

    my pain for him, caused by him—my heart was driven mad.

  3. He turned away from me, and so my patience failed me;

    he sold it off when, with affliction, he tried me.

  4. Before me, from his figure, swayed a slender bān-tree shoot;

    from his eyelids he drew against me a keen Yemeni blade.

  5. Among my people I was honored, but

    in love for him I was clothed in humiliation’s robe.

  6. If he sways upon his steed, all would yearn

    to kiss him—every chaste man and woman.

  7. No one has possessed the beauty he possesses in all the

    world—neither Muslim nor Christian.

  8. Blue-eyed, his glance atop the spear of his

    stature is keen, blue as a spearhead.

  9. Indeed, forgetfulness’s opposite is a letter-alteration of “my beloved”;

    the proof of my riddle about him is plain.

  10. His eye is Turkish, while its pupil is

    Roman; my own pupil aims at the Romans.

  11. Why, then, should we trade away the blue of

    water in summer heat for the thirsty man’s burning thirst?

  12. The blue of sword and spearhead, and the color of

    water, are among the things that delight the beholder’s eye.

Sol 5.6