Sol 5.6

  1. What ails him—what has befallen him?

    What does he seek in the forest?

  2. He sprang up at dawn and went on,

    restless until the sun’s decline.

  3. The branches yearn toward him,

    or bend back, ever returning.

  4. Now he appears, and now

    he hides behind his absence.

  5. Wherever he wanders, he walks

    in splendor and strangeness,

  6. mantled in a ray,

    or riding alone upon a cloud;

  7. or wading through a sea of shade,

    cleaving its swelling flood apart.

  8. Before his hands there flee

    crescents of his foam;

  9. or with his steps he crosses

    a flowing galaxy

  10. of little leaves, swept along

    by the leaping east wind.

  11. Until, when the sun inclines,

    poised between sorrow and play,

  12. casting a radiant farewell,

    while shadow casts its gloom,

  13. it pours over his shoulders

    sweet molten gold.

  14. Then he gleams like a phantom—were it not

    that the breeze stirs his clothes.

  15. What did you seek, O you

    whose very frame toil has wasted,

  16. from every planted thing

    and every garlanded bloom?

  17. What I sought was a wish

    whose fulfillment proved elusive:

  18. among the flowers I sought a virgin,

    enchanting and beguiling,

  19. who would stand for every daughter of spring

    and visit him with her beauty—

  20. gleaming with intelligence,

    smiling from innate nobility,

  21. fragrant with qualities

    pure and delightful,

  22. untainted, never gazed upon

    by suspicious eyes.

  23. To one who beholds her, she is a garden;

    to the sorrowing, a companion.

  24. In faithfulness I appoint her

    as my own dearest envoy

  25. to a princess of virtue,

    chaste and generous,

  26. graced with beauty and nobility,

    with majesty added to her loftiness.

  27. Her station cannot be rivaled

    in dignity or esteem.

  28. She bestowed a kindness upon me,

    and I have not repaid its due.

  29. So among the flowers I went on seeking

    that incomparable one,

  30. until, when my toil grew long

    and I failed to attain my quest,

  31. I composed her from my imagination

    and fashioned her in writing,

  32. that perhaps the gift, though but a portrait,

    might repay some part of the kindness.

Sol 5.6