Sol 5.6

  1. O Abu Shadi, while you are a joy-loving youth,

    captive to the eye, yet free of heart,

  2. you remind me—and have I ever forgotten, even for a day?—

    of Alexandria’s beauty, my friend.

  3. How could I, when above her dew-fresh shore

    the heart circles, its beating unbroken?

  4. Love has watched over it from a lovely strand,

    light of spirit, polished, elegant;

  5. its radiant sand—you would take it for curtains

    embroidered with beads of carnelian.

  6. I circle it, and reverence overcomes me,

    as though I had circled the Ancient House.

  7. O sanctuary of gazelles, you have illumined my soul

    with a lamp-niche of delicate beauty.

  8. The most accomplished see you as an inviolate preserve thrown open,

    reminding them of the slave markets;

  9. yet if the veil were lifted from their eyes, they would say:

    The maidens of Paradise are swimming in nectar.

  10. I returned to the shores after a month,

    cleaving my way along them toward the fair,

  11. and found that autumn had committed against them

    the same offense it commits against the leafy trees.

  12. I returned, terror-stricken in my dreams, lamenting—

    before I had recovered—the convulsions of one awakening.

Sol 5.6