Sol 6.1

  1. His ambition is wine and a brothel;

    And his concern is an oud and a tanbur.

  2. And neither his worldly life nor his faith

    Is anything but dark-eyed oryxes, like sculpted figures.

  3. The train of youth is dragged through waywardness;

    And life is filled with pleasures.

  4. And that night at the temple—how many I used up:

    Wine jars and dinars there!

  5. They came forward like a garden covered with

    Blossoms of pearls and rubies,

  6. On waists made delicately slender—

    So within the girdles there were wasps.

  7. So we could not tell: were the figures' faces

    Lovelier, or were those pictures?

  8. And we had a golden wine: whoever it gambled with

    Among us in drunkenness was beaten at the game.

  9. The choicest grape wine—its cluster

    Was pressed before ever being pressed.

  10. Its radiance outshone the lamp;

    So the lamp was darkness, and the wine was light.

  11. Until, when the bosom of darkness came unbuttoned

    Among us, while dawn's bosom was buttoned shut,

  12. Some things befell me; I have only outlined them.

    Do you have an explanation for them?

Sol 6.1