Sol 5.6

  1. My heart, upon passion’s bough, coos;

    it warbles with longings, while the heart is passionately enamored.

  2. Ever since sleep shunned it, my eye has kept watch at love’s farthest verge,

    at sleeplessness’s watering place, where tears have lined it with kohl.

  3. My body is denied the comfort of couches;

    my heart warbles with longing, its ribs forming the Ḥaṭīm around it.

  4. Whenever a ringdove calls from atop a leafy tree

    to her mate, all my gathered senses stream toward her call.

  5. Whenever mention of the beloved sanctuary passes by, its memory alights,

    and all of me becomes ears at remembrance of the beloved.

  6. May God water love’s garden with abundant, life-giving rain—

    how many a branch within it is ripe with affection!

  7. And may He cherish my hours that passed beneath its shade,

    where the gazelle of my intimacy grazed freely in delight.

  8. How sweet those nights! How lovely their fortune’s full moon,

    rising upon the horizon of exalted happiness and companionship.

  9. The hand of prosperity clothed them in the finest mantles,

    in lights of beauty wherein the stars have their stations.

  10. Treacherous separation erased their traces; yet I

    am content with the slightest remnant of their bygone night journey.

  11. Who will restore them to me, returning me to the beginning? And does one possessed of

    hopes harbor any desire for the yearning lover’s heart?

  12. Then, by God, O east wind, carry a greeting

    from a lovesick lover who yearned when the dwelling grounds receded.

  13. Coax fate by bringing me near; perhaps reunion’s kindly turn

    will come bearing glad tidings when you return.

  14. O breezes of the spirit, go forth and bring refreshment

    to the soul’s sweet basil, who encompasses every grace.

  15. Then my heart will live beside the Riḍwān of my Paradise,

    and pass the evening sheltered from a treacherous age.

  16. Indeed, my two hearts have pitched camp; my ardent longing reveals him,

    and every eloquent speaker’s words of him increase my passion.

  17. Convey to them remembrance of a beloved and of my home,

    and the sweetness of my union, lost amid the throng.

  18. For theirs is the pasturing of my heart—the heart of one who goes

    to graze in their meadow whenever longing roams free.

  19. May God’s peace be upon them in every state,

    whether they dwell far or near, however events may fall.

  20. Theirs is a garden of memories, my dwelling; and now

    my heart has climbed passion’s bough, cooing.

Sol 5.6