Sol 5.6

  1. I see you have forgotten, O gazelle of the lonely sand-tract,

    the nights of that old intimacy.

  2. Estrangement has taken hold within you, and you pay no heed

    to the painful ardor of longing that I endure.

  3. The anguish of abandonment dragged on so long for me

    that my cares themselves grew tired of reproaching me.

  4. I used to think that Time showed forbearance toward this,

    but even the forbearing heart has grown too narrow for me.

  5. I had known Love as a merciful king—

    where, then, is the merciful king’s tenderness?

  6. In nights when youth was a tender bough,

    almost welling with the water of bliss—

  7. how many a night we passed intoxicated,

    as the daughter of the vine willed for us.

  8. She whispered to me every manner of meaning,

    lighter upon you than the passing breeze:

  9. sometimes dalliance, as though magic dwelt within it,

    and sometimes tender reproach, like recovery to the sick;

  10. no waywardness but the folly of affecting youth,

    no play but the play of a boon companion.

  11. We spent the night while goblets stood arrayed in rows,

    rivaling the neck adorned with its well-strung necklace.

  12. Whenever we approached them, they bent tenderly over us,

    as nursing mothers bend over a newly weaned child.

  13. Their aged wine beguiled us, then turned a blind eye,

    as one dear friend overlooks another dear friend’s fault.

  14. We unveiled her while the eye of dawn intimated

    its sidelong glances toward the pitch-black night.

  15. The garden was drenched with dew along its borders,

    and that river’s surface was polished smooth.

  16. It offered itself to the stars despite their aloofness,

    and the stars’ reflected forms came visiting it.

  17. And one whole day we passed in conversation,

    sweeter than hopes are to one bereft,

  18. despite the lies of reproachers and fault-finders,

    and the suspicions of every sinful fabricator.

  19. He gazed at me, and I at him—both of us

    like one orphan gazing upon another.

  20. I never forget his promised meetings, nor my saying:

    “Perhaps one day I shall find joy in the barren.”

  21. Nor do I forget my weeping on the day he sang:

    “If the sons of Tamim should grow angry with you,

  22. then, O fragrant basil of every heartsick youth—

    beloved, friend, or interlocutor!

  23. O king of hearts—and indeed I see him

    risen above them upon the Mighty Throne—

  24. you have unjustly tormented me by abandoning me;

    is there anyone to help me against the male ostrich?

  25. You spared nothing of me when you fastened my saddle—

    so what can remain of a body gone to decay?

  26. Slanderers surrounded you, though you knew

    the seductions of every accursed devil.

  27. What ails you, that you turned from the covenant of youthful passion,

    when the covenant of youthful passion is not blameworthy?

  28. Blessed is He who has appointed for every ardent lover

    a reproacher, whether ignoble or noble.

Sol 5.6