Sol 5.6

  1. How are your eyes, O Umar?

    I—sleeplessness has made mine bleed,

  2. and an essence pressed from tears.

    Grief overflowed, and it streamed down.

  3. A vision visited me—

    of a beloved—toward dawn.

  4. It hovered awhile about my bed,

    then vanished from sight.

  5. My innermost heart followed it—

    my soul—when it fled.

  6. Where is Layla, upon the shores

    of Beirut, O Umar?

  7. From her tresses came the darkness;

    and from her face, the moon.

  8. And my evening companion, my kisser,

    sweet in kisses and evening talk;

  9. and my wine, already claimed

    by the rapture of triumph.

  10. Where are my revelry and wild high spirits,

    and that bygone age,

  11. when I gave no thought to separation,

    nor did the beloved who left me think of it?

  12. Where? No—where? And life

    is but a fleeting glance of the eye.

  13. Thus joy slips away,

    swiftly, the instant it arrives.

Sol 5.6