Sol 6.1

  1. A gray dove of song has stirred you,

    Dusky-marked, she calls upon a hill.

  2. Speechless, yet her melody reveals

    The hidden secret of passion.

  3. She recounts the tales of love

    From a flood of tears, from sickness.

  4. How strange it is! She laments separation,

    While her palm is dyed with red ʿanam.

  5. She recalled old days within the haven;

    May the haven be watered in the season of steady rains.

  6. Days of the passing white oryxes,

    Swaying in robes of bliss,

  7. In Damascus, among its dwellings,

    And its dark-green, luxuriant springtime,

  8. And its Barād, and its Barīd,

    And the forecourt of its vast congregational mosque.

  9. And its portico is the home of learning,

    And its courtyard the home of wisdom.

  10. And its gardens, and its groves,

    And its pools that cure sickness,

  11. And its air, and its waters,

    And its abundant, sweet, limpid water,

  12. And the noonday resting-place on those hills,

    And the shade of those acacias,

  13. And the watercourse of Bānās, down to

    A revered valley's broad, pebbly bed.

  14. Its pebbles are pearls, and the soil

    Of its land is musk to smell.

  15. Those are the dwellings in the haven,

    Not like the dwellings of Iḍam,

  16. And al-ʿAqīq's smooth rocks, and Laʿlaʿ,

    And al-Raqmatayn, and Dhū Salam,

  17. And Rāma's shade, and al-Naqā,

    And al-Munḥanī, and the hills of Akam.

  18. A land whose people are dear—

    So marvel, though they honored no obligations.

  19. I long for it whenever

    The east wind's fragrance wafts from it.

  20. It is the world's paradise, and smelling

    Its soil heals pain.

  21. It is beauty enough that it

    Figures in some accounts of Idam.

  22. I parted from it, not willingly,

    And left it, not out of weariness.

  23. All this—and a night like the Day

    Of Resurrection, in which I did not sleep.

  24. I spend its evening bewildered by

    Thoughts of livelihood, in pain,

  25. In the quarters of Islāmbūl, in

    The abode of loss, as grief's sworn companion.

  26. I taste no bread of fine flour

    There, though it abounds in blessings.

  27. Nor, indeed, the dried meat,

    Though I see it on a meat board.

  28. Rather, I crave a chestnut

    To keep a little life in me—but no—

  29. After I no longer had

    Anything of which to ask, 'How much?'

  30. Except the remnants of a soul,

    They are the property of a generous lord.

  31. A lord whose protected domain is a Kaaba,

    And whose courtyard's shade is a sanctuary.

  32. And his threshold, for the healing of mouths

    Of the eminent, is a place to kiss.

  33. They hasten to his doors

    From every pass they brave,

  34. And receive of his bounty—

    Whatever peoples have sought him.

  35. Except this humble servant of Your Eminence,

    The dervish at your sought-out door.

  36. Would you not look toward him

    As masters look upon servants,

  37. And show him mercy with employment,

    Out of kindness, even at a sheepfold?

  38. By the sanctity of your bounty—I swear—

    He has tasted no meat for who knows how long!

  39. O you whose clouds of bounty

    Surpass the clouds when they pour,

  40. May you ever remain, your domain guarded

    With might, lavish in generosity,

  41. In an envied reign,

    Granting bounty to the sons of hope,

  42. As long as a many-voiced songstress warbles

    In her thicket, dove-gray melodies.

Sol 6.1