Sol 6.1

  1. Neither the cooing doves among the boughs

    Nor the rising of wine with bubbles

  2. Is for anything but a meaning: when you grasp it,

    The limit binds you to the guise of play.

  3. For this reason, in beauty, it has not carried

    Any people out of contraction—the expansion of rapture.

  4. They have beheld absolute beauty, without

    A watchman of otherness or any veils.

  5. So they became enamored of figures with swaying

    Flanks, and of smiling mouths with lustrous teeth.

  6. And were bewitched by eyes that, when they glance,

    Shoot like bows with arrows of eyelashes.

  7. And in passion they surrendered their reins,

    Willingly to the rule of unmarried, budding-breasted maidens.

  8. In the secret recesses of their souls' passion there is no

    Taint from any of the stains of doubt.

  9. Their eyes were created for beauty

    And purified with streaming tears.

  10. They heeded no rank that would bind them,

    Yet all together they are the inhabitants of the ranks.

  11. So circle their taverns, in hope of a spark

    From some of their cups, without a flame;

  12. With their unmixed wine you may dispel your cares, or

    Become one of the company, joined as kin.

  13. And be their uninvited guest, observing courtesy,

    For I see no intercessor but courtesy.

  14. And if you draw near their pavilion,

    Then prostrate yourself before beauty's majesty, and draw near.

  15. And be absent, I beseech you, in their presence,

    From yourself; for whoever is absent from himself is not absent.

Sol 6.1