Sol 5.6

  1. All but my heart, I see, is capable of patience,

    and every sickness but my lovesickness can be cured.

  2. Nothing remains between my ribs except

    a heart seared by the anguish of longing.

  3. So cease your blame—it is nothing but meanness;

    long ago I was born with tearful eyes.

  4. What concern is passionate love of yours, whether

    its taste be sweet or bitter?

  5. If calamities seem small, the soul

    will see calamities among you as grave—

  6. like plague-stricken men when the plague arose,

    in days when woe convulsed Egypt.

  7. Fools—how honor was disgraced

    by days as harsh as hardship, leaving no ease.

  8. By Him who weighted the firmly rooted mountains, I

    surely see your shadow upon the earth as stone.

  9. Let him who blames me not be deceived by my silence;

    for in silence I have found reward.

  10. When a fool assails a noble man,

    would you grant his foolishness an excuse?

  11. Would that this age might someday return

    to the days of youth, though it cost a lifetime—

  12. the day the heart was like a luxuriant garden,

    and passion’s hand plucked flowers from it;

  13. when nights wailed like birds, and we imagined

    them singing, though they were weeping under duress;

  14. when hopes hovered over love

    like a flock of sandgrouse coming to a river.

  15. Whenever the right one of his two hands meant to grant me something,

    his left meant to rob me.

  16. O Time, I never wronged you, not for a single day;

    why, then, has sorrow wronged me for an age?

  17. It has seen me, after all my breast has borne,

    so emptied that, were joy to come, it would find no breast.

  18. By my life, I never walked upon the earth

    without the conviction within me that beneath my foot lay a grave.

  19. O stars of heaven, why do you flaunt yourselves,

    when indeed we have both come to love a full moon?

  20. If you will aid me against the cares of the nights,

    then bear half of them, and I shall bear half.

  21. I find that whenever I lessen sorrow

    for an hour through hope, I increase it by another.

  22. Within us is a grief for which the earth cries aloud—

    for she is you, bereft in your sky.

  23. What would it cost my beloved if the lightning bore

    a greeting, and I entrusted the wind with a secret?

  24. He knows best what I seek from him,

    and I know best what he seeks.

  25. He has grown accustomed to rebuff and estrangement, treacherously,

    and to hurting the lover and treating him unjustly, out of pride.

  26. Who will greet him? Whenever the breeze blew, it shunned—

    —me, and dawn prolonged its abandonment.

  27. My companions, whenever I needed them,

    only increased my poverty—those who had no need of me.

  28. God created this beauty as a delight,

    but the beautiful one is enamored of pride.

  29. I see rejection as both pleasure and misery;

    and some benefit, when it grows excessive, becomes harm.

  30. So beware your full moon, O stars, for I

    find that beauty has become a secret among mankind.

Sol 5.6