Sol 6.1

  1. Kohl-darkened of eye, long-lashed—

    beauty has become an endowment reserved for her.

  2. She has outstripped all, so every beauty

    walks behind her in this race.

  3. She dazzled you at the first encounter,

    and left you a sworn companion of sorrows.

  4. Beauty inscribed a page

    upon her cheek, letter after letter.

  5. I deciphered it and found it said:

    'Look, if you desire death.'

  6. May my father ransom her who surpassed

    her peers in beauty and grace.

  7. And she gazed with the eyes of an oryx calf

    that sorely wasted you that day at the valley bend.

  8. And the echo of her speech seems such

    that an epileptic, hearing it, would be healed.

  9. A kind of antithesis in rhetorical art,

    as you see in her waist and hips.

  10. And I see the harmony of kindred things

    embodied in a lobe earring and an upper-ear ring.

  11. She was fashioned as passion wished,

    and this description is description enough for you.

  12. She surpassed all, leaving no room

    for a single letter of exception.

  13. She is perfect, and about her beauty

    you find no disagreement among beholders.

  14. Like the perfection of one who attained the heights

    and truth, and all glory in fullest measure.

  15. Unrivaled in his age for knowledge

    exalted, and for kindness and generosity.

  16. The scholar, the discerning critic, the investigator

    of whatever was most concealed.

  17. A Hammad in recounting events,

    all of them, remembered and described.

  18. And an Iyas in grasping subtleties,

    if you seek elucidation and unveiling.

  19. And when he races in poetry's arena,

    the poets run behind.

  20. Alas for our parting! But has

    one who cried 'Alas!' ever quenched burning longing?

  21. O you whose nearness brings me joy,

    so that I sweep sorrows utterly away;

  22. and I confide my troubles to him; I have not

    hidden from him one letter of what befell me.

  23. And I single him out for my innermost thoughts,

    as I have never once favored another companion.

  24. By God, how could you leave me

    and hurl me headlong into separation?

  25. And cut off your kindness, which

    you had accustomed me to before?

  26. And forsake me, and set

    a curtain against reunion and meeting?

  27. All this, though farewell had not

    lifted for us the veil of separation.

  28. Indeed, I make a declaration

    as a fair-minded man who has not spoken unjustly:

  29. Indeed, Ibn Yahya has taken form

    among mankind as gentleness and grace.

  30. And so I found my affection

    had become his alone, an endowment dedicated to him.

Sol 6.1