Sol 5.6

  1. O lightning, when you pass through ʿIzzatā, greet

    my people—even though they grow harsher and more obstinate.

  2. Convey my greetings to them, and tell them:

    “Our beloved ones, how long will this estrangement last?”

  3. Long has my waiting for reunion been; so appoint

    a fixed term for your turning away.

  4. How long must I bear this tormenting longing and sorrow?

    Were my heart a rock, it would surely have shattered.

  5. My masters, on the day I parted from them, I lost

    my reason and divorced joy irrevocably.

  6. Since you left, I have forbidden myself—and rightly so—

    to wear warm robes, and have forsworn even the mention of winter.

  7. Our beloved ones in Damascus—this is a far-off exile’s plea,

    one whom the hands of separation have toyed with and scattered.

  8. To you I lament the fierce intensity of a passion that has never ceased,

    alive and clinging to me, while patience lies dead.

  9. How strange that my soul, when your separation became a certainty,

    did not depart—and how could the heart hold firm?

Sol 5.6