On the Ache of His Inflamed Eye

My soul is worn out by the torment of my aching eye. Lord, what am I ever going to see with this pain-struck eye? Every night, from my own glow, until dawn, I burn in my tears like a candle, in pain and torment. The eye has become like an unworthy child: to have it is grief of mind, to lose it is agony. So many blades have been drawn against my eye that you would think my eye and the sun's eye are one and the same. They say pure musk turns to blood with time; I saw with my own eye how blood became pure musk. In the land of the eye there was so much reckless pain that no people remained, for it fell idle and to ruin. From the cracks that the swelling made appear, my eye rightly earned the name of almond. From sheer inflammation the sockets of my eye have twisted like an arrowhead, curled shut like a bud. The layers of this ruined eye have been pierced with fissures, like a spider's web frayed through. And the pupil of my eye trembles within it the way a fly quivers caught in a spider's web. The teeth of my tears grip the hem of my eyelids fast, slipping from the hand of pain and running off in haste. Inside the eye, of many different colors, like paradise there flow rivers of wine and milk and water. Look at these days of my eye: how it has suddenly become a nursing infant, with spittle dripping from its mouth. It was a swift running messenger; now its feet are blistered, and its only cure is to dye them with henna. This one reared in shade, this delicate child, has pulled its face back away from sun and moonlight. Like a star my eye is bright only in darkness; I lean toward the dark, like a wrong decision. Like a shadow it has turned its face to the wall day and night, sometimes at war with the sun and moon, sometimes rebuking them. My dark pupil has fled the sun; you would say that in my blind luck the owl turned into a crow. A fiery needle is drawn across my eye when a shooting star flings its beam from the sky's kohl-box. My eye once saw from ten miles away, and now, when it sees a needle, it turns everything upside down. Since sweetness now brings me harm, the almond of my eye keeps away from sugared sleep. My eyeball was once a treasurer of pearls and rubies, and now it cannot even look at line or book. Of all I see, I see only some; it is as if my eye has chosen just a small few of the visible things. The wandering star of tears appeared out of the dusk when the sun of sight sank behind its veil. As soon as the flowing eye saw the blood, in apology it hid its face in the veil out of shame. The rain of tears ruined the house of my eye, because from its sleeplessness the door had swung open. Look: you have seen much meat on skewers; on my eyelid the lashes are like skewers over roasting flesh. My eye is both an ocean and a mine in one place, holding pure rubies and lustrous pearls alike. It is like dew and tulip, like star and twilight, like dagger and jewel, like goblet and bubble. My eye is an open flower and my tears warm rosewater; may no one ever be, as I am, lost in flower and rosewater. In the sky of my eye, from tears and blisters, there are countless planets and fixed stars beyond number. This too is among the wrongs the turning age has done: drunkenness in the beloved's eye, and wine in mine. The ruby and pearl that make her lips laugh, from that my eye has learned only wailing and weeping. The pupil of my eye shed its bead from the inflammation, for it had no strength to stand against the rival, pain. What use is the water-tempered arrowhead of the lashes to one whose very arrows of sight are darkened? The lamp of my sight flickers with the breath of speech when smoky vapor rises in me in torment. I see the blood of my eye poured out with my own eye, every time the humor begins to flow. Before the light a moist film has closed in, the way fog gathers thick in the air. A cloud the color of carnelian has blocked the path of sight, with sudden lightning flashing through that cloud. With my eyes shut I am like an ox at the mill; yet from the water of my tears I am like a donkey stuck in the mud. These two, around the musk-dark pillow of the eye, for nights now have been of no use for sleep. Sometimes I lay a finger on my eye like a reed pipe, sometimes I stretch my hand before me like a lute. Though the dark of the eye is starred with fear of blisters, its face is not fit to turn away from wound and pain. In the membrane's veil it swallows blood like a fetus, a child upon whom the trick of youth already shows. This is the dust of a tent whose hem is full of pegs, its ropes strung tight from the beams of light. It is the bad resting place of the natural spirit, and from it the spirit fled: who ever built a bed in the middle of water? The eye is like a mill, and blisters are the grain in it; this mill turns, driven by the blood of the heart. The pupil of my eye sharply pulled back its reins when it saw humanity everywhere with its foot in the stirrup, ready to leave. Out of pain I even prayed for my own blindness; by God's favor, even that was not granted. The jeweled kohl that gives clarity to sight, I applied so that God might grant me its reward. Where is a generous patron so that I might dedicate this ode to his praise and address it to him? I dedicate it to the pupil of my own eye, for today there is no humanity left except in this presence. Would that it fill my sleeve and hem with pearls, at every moment my sight is kept back from it. These fine points I have set upon my eyeball, perhaps Venus will string them into a necklace for adornment. I would set it on my eye with pride, if any of the poets can give an answering reply to this poem.