Sol 5.6

  1. A life whose sweetness is bitter,

    and a heart betrayed by patience,

  2. and a soul in the grip of pain—

    [isolated ʿayn] even stone would soften at its misery.

  3. I have milked Time from all its udders

    and found within it good and evil.

  4. Yet among humankind I found no true friend

    whose like could brace one’s strength.

  5. How can life be sweet to me

    when I have an enemy—and he is Time?

  6. He blunts the keen steel of my initiative,

    though there is no excuse for what he does.

  7. Can its watering places ever run clear,

    and ease attend its unseen future,

  8. when beneath its cloak there lies concealed

    a hand with treachery in its palm?

  9. For since ancient times, between the soul

    and those who pursue it lies a blood-feud.

  10. I see the days shrouded in darkness;

    in their night, the free man loses his way.

  11. Then there is no aspiration and no resolve,

    no prohibition and no command.

  12. The tempests of a lofty spirit have fallen still—

    tempests encompassed by land and sea.

  13. Can a despairing heart still hope

    when the days of love are no longer what they were,

  14. and through his inmost breast there moves

    a sigh whose gentlest current is embers?

  15. He spends the night trembling,

    though there is no terror in his heart—

  16. like one driven away, whom there terrify

    nights that have no dawn.

  17. And days that passed away from us,

    whose folded pages can never open again:

  18. they passed from us in all their splendor,

    and life departed behind them.

  19. And a slender beauty—whenever she glided past,

    majesty itself walked in her wake;

  20. slim-waisted, an enchantress,

    as though her speech were magic.

  21. I kiss her, and she kisses me,

    while purity hovers above our heads.

  22. She has gone far from me; no wonder, then,

    when remembrance stirs me,

  23. that her phantom returns before dawn

    and poetry comforts my solitude.

  24. The hands of separation unjustly struck

    a heart whose branch does harm.

  25. Lo, within the protection of kinship—

    [isolated nūn] a free, untouched soul.

Sol 5.6