Sol 5.6

  1. I courted you—not because I stand in need of you,

    Nor because it is hard to be far from your sheltering shade;

  2. Do not suppose I gave you my love to satisfy a need,

    Nor because some magic surges in the eyes.

  3. Easy now: beauty is no exclusive preserve of yours,

    And most of what conjecture dictates is delusion.

  4. Not every beauty’s magic can weaken the heart,

    Nor is every water wholesome and fit for purification.

  5. Your equals are not so few that you could turn me aside,

    Acting coy over a quality whose likes are plentiful.

  6. Likewise, the full moon is not alone in the universe:

    For there are suns besides it, and full moons.

  7. Yet I fashioned an image of beauty,

    And you alone among humankind are its likeness.

  8. So do not suppose your distance causes me pain,

    Or that being near you holds any joy for me.

  9. Enough for me is a beauty my thoughts have fashioned;

    It stands unveiled, unlike the beloveds harbored in the breast.

  10. When the wounded heart grows lonely, that imagined beauty is indeed

    A familiar friend—and, when companionship is scarce, a companion by night.

  11. Though I remain in my wilderness, amid estrangement and loathing,

    I am steadfast before the treachery of friends.

  12. A longing from me will remain yours as long as time endures—

    Yet that, if you only knew, is falsehood and a lie.

  13. For every flourishing thing in life is bound for withering,

    And fortune’s reversals come round upon everything.

  14. The days will make me forget what I now feel,

    And love’s wounds and sores will fade away.

Sol 5.6