Sol 5.6

  1. My life is nothing but weariness steeped in tedium,

    and wandering through the wastelands of hope.

  2. Morning rises, and the darkness scowls;

    while I, bewildered, am lost in madness.

  3. Whenever a thought roams through my mind,

    my fear of failure scatters it.

  4. Whenever the present smiles upon me,

    my future is lost within its folds.

  5. Whenever I place my hope in something, it perishes—

    my hope, amid the narrowing paths.

  6. Thinking about my fortune has exhausted me;

    alas for my misery—my ascendant lies in Saturn!

  7. I lie awake all night, my heart pounding

    within the recesses of its blazing core.

  8. If I spend my night awake,

    I pass it in futility or work;

  9. and both of these sap my strength,

    exhausting my body, consuming my allotted years.

  10. My homeland—I adore it. O my homeland,

    to lose myself in its love is sweet to me.

  11. Indeed, I struggled for it for years,

    and in loving it forgot my joy.

  12. Yet whenever I struggled for my homeland,

    my countrymen were otherwise occupied.

  13. Had strength not sustained my endurance,

    the sickness of languor would have spread through my joints.

  14. And my passion—what a passion it is!

    Within its blaze burns a flame among flames.

  15. Love is my excuse: if my eyes flare

    at some enchantress, I do not stand in their way.

  16. Indeed, I once loved a graceful maiden,

    clad in beauty’s most splendid robes.

  17. Her face overflowed with joyous radiance and brilliance;

    in it was the noble bearing of prophets’ majesty.

  18. Her voice, whenever she spoke, was measured—

    magnificent in cadence, sweet in phrasing.

  19. If some fevered lover tasted her lips’ moisture,

    he tasted the savor of honey fresh-gathered.

  20. We exchanged the intimate talk of love

    and burned together in the inferno of kisses.

  21. She would gaze at me shyly,

    while I gazed at her in trepidation.

  22. For a while we lived on a measure

    of love’s discourse and courtship.

  23. Then Time loosed a piercing arrow

    at our two beating hearts and struck the mortal spot.

  24. My maiden then shunned me in her coquetry,

    and vanished into the recesses of eternity.

  25. Such is my life, amid my wishes and

    my impulses and my first love.

  26. Such is my life: a world in turmoil;

    whichever way I turn, I fall into trouble.

Sol 5.6