Sol 5.6

  1. Tears race one another down to the throats,

    and fires blaze up from within the breasts;

  2. each day a herald mourns the beloved,

    and grief stretches long through this brief life.

  3. Does any day pass without alarming me,

    or time leave me without a sigh?

  4. Alas for a life I once enjoyed

    with a Badr who outshone the full moons.

  5. I heard his death announced and lost all patience;

    the loss of a beloved companion is no light thing.

  6. O full moon of heaven, I see you appear

    when they have buried your namesake in the graves.

  7. O rain of heaven, I see you pouring down;

    I think you weep for the foremost of all hearts.

  8. By God, if only we had been able,

    we would have washed that full moon with abundant tears.

  9. But tears are fresh-flowing blood,

    and ritual washing requires purifying water.

  10. We would have dug his resting place within our breasts,

    for one like the full moon belongs within the heart.

  11. A grave has attained its utmost wish by holding him—

    but can graves ever encompass oceans?

  12. O Badr al-Din, how hard your loss has made patience for me!

    My reason reels, and all my affairs are thrown awry.

  13. O Badr al-Din, how could you forsake your family

    and accept graves in place of loving hearts?

  14. O Badr al-Din, can wealth redeem you,

    that we might offer every precious treasure laid by?

  15. O Badr al-Din, you were a faithful brother,

    too exalted for hardness and for graves.

  16. How, then, have you come to dwell in the Gardens of Eden

    while, for want of you, my heart is in the Blazing Fire?

  17. How could you consent to this distance? Yet it is

    the decree of the One, the Almighty Lord.

  18. Had we been patient, that would have been better,

    for none gains the reward except the steadfast.

  19. In the best of humankind we have consolation,

    and our own journey ends at this same destination.

  20. I have asked God to lodge him in gardens

    and draw him near among immortal youths and houris,

  21. and afterward grant both us and him His bounty

    and forgiveness, and pardon much.

Sol 5.6