Sol 6.1

  1. I have brought to mind what passed of the lovelorn one's former days,

    and he nearly perished from grief on recalling it.

  2. A long-necked beauty, with dangling earrings and supple grace,

    stepped toward me like a slender bough, swaying in short steps.

  3. Far-reaching in her aim, she shoots with an eye

    of a gazelle of Wajra whose eyelid reveals thick lashes.

  4. She trod upon the anguish of a passion I had watched over all night,

    and the heat of a blaze that had pierced the heart's very core.

  5. So I thought my youthful prime had regained its freshness,

    for the one I had loved passionately and devotedly;

  6. when the old dwelling-traces appeared fresh with fair beauties,

    and, with full-breasted maidens, seemed a fresh, untouched garden.

  7. And she arrived like a patch of meadow after a night shower,

    which watered its daisies with drops of its shimmering water.

  8. The hills' children flourished within it, and it became

    an abode of repose, bending toward the buttercups.

  9. Within its folds lay a Dari perfumer's fragrance, which perfumed

    the precincts of its assembly's abode, long honored.

  10. By God, how much its lofty eloquence has gathered

    of every exquisite meaning, pleasing or subtle,

  11. and filled it with longings, in passages

    as though they were bright stars, or hillside flowers in their luxuriance.

  12. Among them are congratulations for Najm al-Din, your servant;

    and for his like, your praise is honor enough.

  13. And here we have sent al-Sharif's collected poems to

    your honored presence, and some embroidery following close thereafter.

  14. But it is not like the embroidery whose mantle you wove:

    yours proves to be pearls, while what I have woven is shells.

  15. May you always let my hearing sip every exquisite utterance,

    which becomes earrings for humankind's listening ears.

Sol 6.1