Sol 5.6

  1. My two friends, is there some spell of sleep in which I might find rest,

    amid separation—or some tear I might permit myself to shed?

  2. Lo, you who send letters as a stratagem

    to remind me of a dwelling so recently left behind:

  3. The moisture dripping from its plants looked like vegetation sprung from rain,

    and its praise and commendation made me blush.

  4. No meadow in the rugged uplands, visited at dawn by life-giving rain,

    whose lavender and wormwood exude its dew,

  5. is more fragrant than the verses of poetry I sent forth,

    renewing longings whose telling would be long.

  6. Our master's excellence is nothing new—how many

    illustrious works of beneficence are his, manifestly clear!

  7. Your forefathers are the pivots of speech, its kings;

    no wonder, then, at its triumphs in both its modes.

  8. Indeed, speech's variegated brocade has been restored, richly figured,

    to them, just as the sun was restored to Joshua.

  9. What age has ever passed in which there was no

    singing bird from among you upon glory's bough?

  10. The earliest of you among the ancients was glory's orator;

    the latest of you among later generations is her eloquent voice.

  11. Tell anyone who claims he can attain its furthest reach:

    yes, you may grasp its body—but its spirit will elude you.

  12. And now, I have a secret to disclose to you,

    though I do not disclose every secret that concerns me.

  13. It is this: I have shunned all that humankind

    pursues of this world, whose beguiling breeze deceives.

  14. When I considered all affairs and it became clear to me,

    through trying them, what was unsound and what was sound,

  15. I took up the station of abiding, cutting off

    the cravings of a soul whose grave has drawn near.

  16. I kept my soul aloof from humankind's crowding around

    a miserly, scant-yielding well whose meager water does not seep.

  17. How long—how long—must a soul be abased? Until when?

    Better than abasement is a death that brings it rest.

  18. Farewell, world! Is there anyone who will join me

    in forsaking a world whose wounds never heal?

  19. Though the world seeks to sway my soul with tenderness, she will not win it over;

    and though she gives with gracious favor, my soul will not beg from her.

  20. So do not leave me without a prayer for the life to come,

    that perhaps there may be repentance whose sincerity pleases God.

  21. For you are a brother in God, whose prayer is looked to;

    when a soul seeks counsel, you are its sincere counselor.

  22. May the remembered haunts of a dwelling whose slopes you once inhabited be watered

    by successive rain-clouds, their cascading outpourings streaming down.

Sol 5.6