Sol 6

  1. Can passion deny that I have grown pale with love?

    Behind every rising cloud of smoke there is a flame.

  2. I have not forgotten, as the tale-bearers supposed, nor

    Will I forget, as the weary reprover hopes.

  3. If a reprover of love weeps over my longing,

    What makes my reprover weep brings me delight.

  4. I implore you by God, my soul: go, overcome with longing

    For people who have departed from al-Jar‘āʾ.

  5. Do not ask them for a pledge in love;

    For the Arabs have long kept their pledges.

  6. They are worthy of my affection, and it is their due;

    But their affection for me is no obligation upon them.

  7. From their eyelids they clothed me in illness;

    I now trail it about me like a flowing robe.

  8. Their cheeks have turned my tears red;

    How could I deny what they have bestowed?

  9. Is there any safety except to die for them

    Of longing? For to remain alive is ruin.

  10. If they take a part of me, the whole belongs to them,

    Though what they took was the noblest part of me.

  11. If the swaying branch tips knew for whom

    They had been left behind, their boughs would not stay green.

  12. And if the valley’s watering place they visited knew

    Who came to drink its water, delight would make it tremble.

  13. I hold my breath whenever they are mentioned,

    Lest the fire of my sigh burn them.

  14. My eyes release tears at their former dwellings,

    Lest the clouds outpour them first.

  15. Thus every lover feels protective jealousy for them,

    And every jealous lover has a wondrous alertness.

  16. I question the ban tree about the breeze that bends it toward them,

    Like someone who cannot tell what caused it.

  17. Those are traces of the suppleness of their figures:

    The wind passed over the branches, and they swayed for it.

Sol 6