Sol 6.1

  1. I have grown familiar with the eagle for fear of punishment.

    And I shunned the watering places for fear of wolves.

  2. And I hated my soul for its disobedience,

    And reproached it with the sternest rebuke.

  3. And I said to it: “Youth has departed from you,

    And gray hair has stripped you of youth’s robe.

  4. And after that comes nothing but decay,

    And dwelling in graves, and the terror of the reckoning.”

  5. So reproach awakened it from its sleep,

    Yet it is full of unrest.

  6. How often it formed a rain cloud of piety,

    And soon it became like the shimmer of a mirage.

  7. And how often it promised me repentance—and how often!

    Yet it never fulfilled its promise to repent.

  8. And how often it deceived me, although I

    Am well versed in the paths of error and right.

  9. So I am not safe from its treachery,

    Even if it swore to me by the verses of the Book.

Sol 6.1