Sol 6.1

  1. Khushab, is it true that your household is being uprooted,

    and that what lies between me and you is wearing thin?

  2. To God I complain that in my heart is an anguish

    born of longing, which neither fades nor finds relief.

  3. I tell my companions: leave me a hostage

    to the sea of love—surely I am venturing into its depths.

  4. Khushaba has solace, perfume, and fruit,

    while I have burning pains that glow beneath love.

  5. My soul is torn apart, anguish after anguish,

    when they say, 'Tomorrow she departs, without stopping along the way.'

  6. Among the miseries of these days, she was led to an aging bachelor

    who, out of baseness, neither gives generously nor brightens.

  7. I was given no means concerning her, except that I

    yearn for what I have lost of her and sob.

  8. I cried, 'Woe!' the day her belongings departed

    and left me trembling the night they set off.

  9. And what deepened my passion for her, though she did not know,

    was the braziers blazing in the maidservants' hands.

  10. [Opening word unclear] Mansur al-Mughiri's camels,

    and this heart of mine, toward him, is crooked beyond reason.

  11. She did not come out among them until they reproached her,

    standing there, and until the sun was almost rising.

  12. Then she rose, with a look of meekness upon her,

    staggering like a drunken woman from shyness, and panting.

  13. No tears came from me until she set off

    at dawn, with saddled al-Fanid following her.

  14. Oh, the tears at parting from her before ever winning her,

    and at a casket in which glass bottles were packed tight!

  15. They carried it out in another woman's lap, as though it were

    a little boy, a few nights old, swaddled in tattered cloth.

  16. And they brought up a mount with its back cushioned, as though

    it moved, swaying, in the dark folds of its coverings,

  17. like a star appearing in the darkness—no, rather like

    the glow of a drunken man's fire, kindled and shining.

  18. Then, when it drew near her, she wept at its approach,

    and they said to her, 'Rise, mount; the dawn is bright.'

  19. They said, 'We are your ransom,' to hurry her, but she turned away,

    bashful at what they asked of her, and acting coy.

  20. And they did not stop until she appeared before their eyes,

    and the singer sang, and the pierced reed-flute too.

  21. And when the candlelight revealed her, an onlooker glorified God,

    and Raffaf proclaimed God's greatness; they set off, raising dust.

  22. And my dream did not come true: they surrounded a conveyance,

    and in that encircled conveyance was a crowned full moon.

  23. And oh, a liver—longing has roasted half of it,

    and the other half is roasting on the fire of yearning.

  24. If she rides away from us by night, tell her,

    'Peace be upon you; the man who would marry you has died.'

  25. I wept, though no fresh tear remained in my eye,

    but sorrows forced their way into me.

  26. Were I to die, death would be better than misery,

    and a young man has no escape from what God has decreed.

Sol 6.1