Sol 6

  1. I am absent, yet in fidelity I remain present.

    My visits grow distant, but my letter comes to visit.

  2. I go about my day while remembrance, within my breast,

    is a flame that sends tears flowing from my eyes.

  3. I call to you while longing does its work,

    with a prayer that reaches beyond deliverance.

  4. I console myself with letters, though seldom

    have letters and lines cured the sickness of separation.

  5. If my patience away from you lasts but one night,

    how could a patient soul bear many nights?

  6. َ

    And how can I endure absence from one so radiant, whose radiance

    is a blossom to my nose and light to my eyes?

  7. I was never one to neglect good judgment before this,

    but against fate my judgment falls short.

  8. After you, with weariness a trait of yours,

    can any comfort please me or any joy be complete?

  9. God has willed that you embody all excellence,

    even if hearts grow uneasy at what I say.

  10. How many graceful thoughts of you I hold

    that travel freely, while thoughts of anyone else remain captive.

  11. And phrases which, if verse were to join them,

    would adorn breasts and necks with their pearls.

  12. Jarwal and Muhalhil fall short of them,

    while al-Akhtal and Jarir follow their pattern.

  13. In every friend but you there is something to fault,

    and in every love but yours there is falsehood.

  14. Would that I knew whether we might meet again,

    so that a time that keeps wronging me might turn fair.

  15. There is hope in God's relief and kindness,

    for the turns of fate keep turning.

  16. Hopes may be attained and desires fulfilled,

    and after one turn of events, others may arise.

  17. You have changed, and days grow clear and then cloud over;

    who can go far away and remain unchanged?

  18. You treated with forgetfulness a friend whose heart

    and speech are full of remembering you.

  19. He has kept an affection for you, though the days wear things away,

    so fresh that it almost drips.

  20. God has willed that I never forget your friendship for an instant,

    though lands and ages lie far between us.

  21. How could I forget one whose love and person

    are my heart's thought and my eye's vision?

  22. When he is absent from my sight, my inner gaze still meets him;

    one encounter fades, and another takes shape.

  23. I had long dreaded the calamity of parting,

    and what I feared from it has now befallen me.

  24. Would that the pain of distance from you had come first,

    and the joy of closeness to you had come later.

  25. The days when I met you were many before this,

    but the days of separation are more.

  26. My yearning has stretched through long nights

    that, when you were near, used to seem short.

  27. The shock of parting has left me deaf to news of you,

    but the language of my state speaks of you.

  28. Deep within me, your memory burns like a brazier;

    and as my words unfold, remembrance of you is ambergris.

Sol 6