Sol 6.1

  1. Sleep was denied by night-visiting cares,

    And grief, and remembrance of an old calamity,

  2. From the moment night enveloped me, until

    Dawn put the brilliant stars to shame,

  3. With its light dyeing the horizon safflower-yellow,

    Shining in the last reaches of pitch-black darkness.

  4. Tell your soul: people are only like sticks,

    Some growing, some dry and broken.

  5. Of dwellings I visited, stirred by remembrance,

    Between the knolls of Dahik and al-Hazim.

  6. The winds wove across their surface, until

    The level ground was clear of every trace,

  7. Like the healing of wounds [wording unclear]

    Of the skin, until it is sound again after gashes.

  8. And the succession of days, until they were erased by

    Time gone by, after long-established habitation.

  9. The dwelling of Maktumah, who bewitched me

    Into madness—who, then, will tend a sick heart?

  10. The tribe's journey brought us together there for a year,

    Dallying with our concealed secret.

  11. Tirelessly I dallied; she undid my self-restraint

    With white front teeth and a lovely face,

  12. And because below her veil lay

    Softly waving, flowing hair that showed her luxury;

  13. And necklace-strands coursing over her collarbones,

    Of silver beads and strung pearls.

  14. She dispels the tent's darkness, as

    Dawn reveals an oryx of the sandy waste.

  15. The heart rejoiced that her journey drew near [reading uncertain],

    Like the soul's joy in riches won.

  16. Then youthful love was forgotten, with a she-camel of sudden spurts,

    Who, after losing her calf, ransoms herself by swift trotting.

  17. She cast the last of her three calves unborn,

    Neither fed colostrum nor tenderly nursed.

  18. She is like a full-grown tawny wild ass, now

    Wandering through the vast, trackless desert.

  19. Living on Unazah's herbage alone had wasted him, until

    He found no renewed draught at al-Yatim.

  20. Then he ran, knowing the mountain passes, until

    He returned to a spring pouring out plentiful, stale water,

  21. Wide and open, driving away burning thirst with a drink

    Repugnant to the tongue and throat [reading uncertain].

  22. And indeed a grief has stood in the way of all that,

    Such as should check the heart of a forbearing man.

  23. If my people have scattered, after they once

    Were the people indeed, then weep without blame.

  24. And indeed the neighbor among them lives at ease,

    Neither anxiously watching nor reviled.

  25. Full-grown, sturdy horses repel from them

    Every overbearing, mighty host.

  26. They secured their tethers since the fresh herbage dried,

    Tossing chopped fodder about in their feedbags.

  27. Then they grazed through spring like reed-shafts, bearing into

    Battle every resourceful, generous man.

  28. Knowing, when the spearpoints of death meet,

    The charge of armored warriors and the advance.

  29. Holding firm at every dangerous frontier,

    Biting fast on the axe-heads of their bits.

  30. They are speechless, yet they have understood these words:

    'Move! Advance! Go on! Stand!'

  31. Every slender, locust-like mare and sleek, powerful stallion,

    With Abyssinian-black legs and a dark bay hide,

  32. Lean and tall, with a gazelle's back,

    A wild ass's two shoulder-muscles and a male ostrich's legs,

  33. And a tail adorning his hindquarters, with a

    High rump, like a mass of crouching rock,

  34. A firmly knit backbone, and ribs

    Swelling out the diaphragm and chest,

  35. And a neck like a tree-trunk from which

    A date-harvester has shaved the fiber with an adze;

  36. And hooves with frogs turn the gravel aside,

    Compact and rounded, bearing down on solid, piled stones.

Sol 6.1