Sol 6.1

  1. Sukayna visited weary travelers among whom had settled

    sleep’s intercession for the two eyes, and sleeplessness.

  2. As though they had been slain yesterday when they fell,

    and streaks had appeared, their colors vivid.

  3. And alongside the longing she awakened may stir

    its companions: flashes of lightning and remembrance.

  4. And from Qasa, urging our mounts onward, we were driven

    to you by the pursuit of our needs and by fate,

  5. and by three ravaging calamities that left us

    no wealth with which to await the rain after them.

  6. Two left no flesh; another crushed

    the bones—a red calamity—until the choicest stock were swept away.

  7. So I said: What of my family, when they were bitten

    by a year for which every hastening herd was slaughter-stock?

  8. A year before which came two years that left

    no wealth, nor did rain wet a twig in either.

  9. She said when she saw me—sweet as she lay

    upon the bed, with coy charm and modesty—

  10. as though I were pursuing a people over a calamity

    like a treacherous killing-blow that spares nothing and leaves nothing:

  11. “Dismiss your worries; let none that arrives kill you;

    for all that arrives will one day depart.”

  12. When my anxiety scattered me, I mustered to meet it

    a firm resolve, with no weakness in its determination.

  13. So I said: There is only al-Sham for you to ride to,

    as though death in its military districts were unquenchable thirst,

  14. or for you to visit Tamim in its dwellings

    at Merv, though peril is feared on the way to it.

Sol 6.1