Sol 6

  1. As you remember them, the moringa trees of the protected pasture stand upon its dunes.

    And the abode of love: enemies guard the grazing ground of its flock.

  2. I speak while the dark spears of al-Khatt form veils before its veils.

    May rain water the ruins of the home where you dwell:

  3. Great jars of downpour, in summer and spring.

    Your dwelling bears the wasting that longing and love have brought upon me.

  4. And I bear the desolation that parting and distance have brought upon it.

    I shall water its soil with my tears, if it can drink its fill.

  5. And your little tents at the bend of the sand ridge

    Have worn away with a decay their dwelling places did not cause.

  6. What turned me from the path of forgetfulness was not perversity

    Beside hearthstones like tame doves,

  7. But fidelity, whose watering place is never foul.

    Even had the departing travelers not stirred my grief, it would have been stirred by

  8. Gray doves alighting among the dwellings.

    Their calls remind the sorrowful one, the sufferer from longing,

  9. Of the time of closeness before the terror of separation,

    And of its pleasant nights at the sand ridge.

  10. They called to one another and made those who loved weep:

    Mourners for whom no tears were shed.

  11. Whenever a breeze blows from the protected pasture,

    I speak, and my longings burn more fiercely:

  12. Perhaps a home will draw near with them; perhaps.

    And the rush of tears, O Layla, whenever

  13. I remember you alone in solitude, comes swiftly.

    If one past day with you returned, O Layla,

  14. Neither my life nor the prime of youth would be too high a price.

    My soul has turned away from estrangement and hatred.

  15. Yet I shall console myself for you, as an exile consoles himself

    For a distant, fearful homeland.

  16. Does the reproacher hope to find me an escape from love?

    My heart rebels whenever I try to train it through sorrow.

  17. If the pebbles bore what I bear, they would split apart.

    To God I complain of an intention that split our unity:

  18. Today it is scattered, though yesterday it was whole.

    Layla believed a fabricated lie about us.

  19. A rejection born of false accusation differs from one born of reproach.

    What a time of endless change!

  20. Once, people sought my help as an intercessor;

    Who will intercede for me with Layla today?

  21. Could I have a sip of the coolness of her upper teeth,

    And the return of a time glimpsed like crescent moons?

  22. So tell her: may the frail-flanked rain cloud shower you.

    Will our former days return, O Layla,

  23. At Dhu al-Ramth, or will they never return?

    My reproacher, what have I to do with you? May you be guided; what is it to you?

  24. It grieved me that I even crossed your mind.

    Leave me be: your blame is one of your errors.

  25. By your life, on the day at Jar‘ā’ Mālik,

    I defied the reproaching women and disregarded their command.

  26. Repeat mention of her; through her memory, make her dearer to me.

    And leave aside her fault, for love reveals an excuse for her.

  27. Through my fidelity and her betrayal, I have remained as I was.

    When the reproaching women ordered me to leave her,

  28. A heart, broken by what they said, fluttered away from their words.

    Layla’s favor and her reproach both increase my love for her,

  29. As do the distance of her departure, if she goes far away, and her nearness.

    Neither the reproachers’ truth nor their lies have restrained me.

  30. How could I obey the reproaching women when love for her

    Keeps me awake while the reproaching women sleep?

Sol 6