Sol 6.1

  1. Will those nights return as once they were,

    to reunion—or is there no hope of their return to me?

  2. And the company of those for whose loss I donned

    mourning robes, each cast-off one renewed?

  3. Whenever lightning flashes toward me from Baghdad,

    my eyelids part, and their sleep is put to flight.

  4. And if the morning rainclouds' thunder disappoints them,

    their tears are charged with making the clouds' promise true.

  5. May both sides of Baghdad be watered by every cloud

    whose downpour mirrors the tears of the lovelorn:

  6. haunts of human gazelles, where a pact is sworn

    by their glances: none they fell shall be healed.

  7. There the wary soul grows calm, and morning finds

    its stranger with a heart more at ease than a resident's.

  8. Every heart longs for it, as though

    its dwellings were built from the very cores of hearts.

  9. So every night of life there is the season of youth,

    and every season of time there is its spring.

  10. I never ceased to submit to calamities that led me

    according to their decree, unwillingly; yet I obeyed them.

  11. But when I settled in the palace—the palace of my joy—

    their hosts scattered away from me, despairing.

  12. In a dwelling where one who yearns forgets his longing,

    and one whom calamities terrify is safe from their perils.

  13. There the eye has room to roam amid what delights it,

    and the soul a refuge from what terrifies it.

  14. Every heart sees within it what gladdens it,

    when its trees and crops bloom.

  15. It is as though the murmur of water along its sides

    were thunderclaps meeting a raincloud and startling it.

  16. When the wind strikes it, and over it spreads

    the full moon's mantle, divided by its woven strands,

  17. I see, amid the folds of coats of mail, swords—

    gilded, their brilliance dazzling the eyes.

  18. Thus their blades are the work of the radiant full moon,

    and their armor is woven from the winds' breaths.

  19. Our life there grew serene, and its sweetness nearly

    made souls mingle with it—if only they could.

Sol 6.1