Sol 6.1

  1. Attributes and names have kept her

    from being seen without a veil—Asma.

  2. We have gone astray in her hair, though it is part of her;

    and through her the lights have guided us to her.

  3. How did we spend the night complaining to one another of thirst,

    O my people, when water is in the saddlebags?

  4. How often we wept in grief for one—had we known,

    our weeping would have sprung from overwhelming joy.

  5. We are a people who have died—and that is a condition

    of loving her; so let the living despair.

  6. And she has settled our souls within her sanctuary,

    not through us, but through her, so that purity may be unclouded.

  7. So when she calls, the one answering from among us is she;

    and those answering her through her are echoes.

  8. O Abu al-Khayr, rise—goodness is yours—and gladden

    poverty's ear with that song of yours.

  9. Do not miss your cup, which comes from her lips' dusky hue;

    it is for this that the drinking companions have vied.

  10. I did not say your cup had passed you by, but

    perhaps the tawny wine has swept you away.

  11. The wine that steals the mind is drunk only

    by drinking companions who are her equals.

  12. They made her drunk with themselves, just as she made them drunk

    at their beginning with her; thus fidelity was fulfilled.

  13. So recompense from her and from them is concord;

    and concord from her and from them is recompense.

  14. She has taken their names, and they are none other than she;

    so the one named is those names.

Sol 6.1