Sol 6

  1. O Mayy, gazelle of the Valley of al-Liwa,

    Your love has left no room in my heart for another love.

  2. Tell me, have you ever encountered the like of what

    Your stricken lover endured on the day of parting?

  3. I spend the night watching the stars, with a heart

    In which longing has kindled the fire of anguish.

  4. Ah, separation and its torments!

    Were it not for distance, you would find no lover laid low.

  5. Alas for days gone by: their memory

    Stirs a yearning folded away in the heart.

  6. In God's keeping is a beloved who,

    When absent from my eyes, dwells in my heart.

  7. With a swaying figure like a branch,

    Above which the full moon of beauty has risen.

  8. I would give my life for this young gazelle above all others;

    Harut himself has told of the magic in those eyelids.

  9. A full moon when unveiled, a gazelle when

    Drawing near, a supple spear when bending.

  10. Fond of proud aloofness, never relenting,

    While my heart cannot turn away from loving him.

  11. O moon, whose beloved has left him,

    Who has never drunk his fill of the wine of that mouth;

  12. O young gazelle for whom my eyes yearn,

    Though my heart has held him close.

  13. From the languor of your eyes comes my sickness, and

    The fires of your cheeks have scorched my heart.

  14. Be generous and restore sleep to an eye

    That has never kept vigil for love of another.

  15. And send a vision of yourself to visit me,

    For you are the cause of my illness, and you are its cure.

Sol 6