Sol 5.6

  1. O home of Mayya at al-Jar‘āʾ—may you be greeted

    and revived by life-giving showers, evening and morning.

  2. Nor may the streaming floods of my tears ever fail you,

    if the full watering of my weeping eyes can please you.

  3. Rain and rich pasture upon the days I spent there,

    living the life of youth within your sheltering grazing grounds.

  4. No garden breeze ever murmured as it fluttered

    but I breathed from it the sweetness of your scent.

  5. No dove of the thicket ever sang upon a bough

    but I remembered my days in your abode.

  6. I yearn for the sands of al-Jar‘āʾ at Dhū Iḍam—

    what would my heart have to do with al-Jar‘āʾ, were it not for you?

  7. My fortitude betrays me whenever a sorrow-stricken soul moans,

    and patience fails whenever remembrance of you arises.

  8. By God, the sweetness of radiant nights in you—

    now passed! How sweet they were, and how sweet were you,

  9. when separation had not yet scattered my circle, nor had my snares

    been left bare of catching graceful gazelles.

  10. O gazelle grazing freely upon the solitary dune,

    you have left my eyes bereft, though your dwelling is deep within my breast.

  11. You shot my heart with an arrow from your gaze, though

    you dwelt within it already—your target was not far.

  12. The swaying branch bespeaks the curves of your sides;

    the full moon’s countenance tells of your face.

  13. The smiling light of dawn almost mirrored you,

    but the flash of your front teeth turned it back.

  14. They said the shining forenoon sun resembles you;

    it did not: the one who said so merely imagined it.

Sol 5.6