Sol 6.1

  1. Trust in my noble patience in the face of time,

    but do not trust in my patience in the face of separation.

  2. My heart was struck after fifty years

    by the eyes of tawny gazelles in the barren land.

  3. Nor do I fix my gaze on the side of wealth

    when lofty honor lies on the side of poverty.

  4. But I am bitter in enmity, an inflicter of loss,

    with many offenses in verse and with brown lances.

  5. I hurled them at the pillars of Qays ibn Jahdar,

    and shattered them; I pelt the catapults with rocks.

  6. And al-Ghaw'i did no wrong; rather, I am the wrongdoer.

    And could a waterbird's chick ever stand firm against a falcon?

  7. Indeed, I weep for poetry only because I

    see every bat jostling for a place in poetry.

  8. And before him lies a sea, and night enfolds him;

    what, then, does he think of night in the sea's depths?

  9. Away with you, away with you from Lu'ayy ibn Ghalib!

    For Lu'ayy does not pass the night with a wrong unavenged.

  10. Leave the tongue-flicking serpent alone; do not meddle with it,

    for deaths lie between its green fangs.

Sol 6.1