Sol 5.6

  1. I was bereaved of one after whom I have no command over my eyes;

    at every moment, tear follows tear from them.

  2. Indeed, in my bewilderment and confusion, I forget him—

    yet that forgetting arises only from remembrance.

  3. I lost Abu Marwan just when I had found him,

    when no hardship remained amid the gentleness of his nature.

  4. Just when the first bloom of his youth delighted the eye,

    when blessings were perfected through him and glad tidings surrounded him.

  5. Whenever some crisis roused him,

    I drove sleep from my eye because of him; it would not sleep.

  6. Grave dangers bore him flying toward every cry of alarm,

    while broad backs were folded beneath him and jugulars slit.

  7. Before that, he had resolutely crossed the seas

    to the Sacred House, until he touched the Corner and the Stone,

  8. then went on to the Messenger’s tomb for a visit,

    discharging and fulfilling every right, duty, and vow.

  9. At those holy sites he rubbed his face in the dust,

    prostrating to a Lord who rules creation and command.

  10. On that journey I had already resigned myself to losing him for God’s reward,

    and patiently harbored despair of ever meeting him again.

  11. Yet He returned him safely to me despite the perils,

    after he had won from that journey glory in piety.

  12. My yearning for him grew as he grew in happiness,

    and through the springtime of his youth I gained another lifetime beyond my own.

  13. I prolonged my hopes, hoping he might remain;

    but that prolonging disclosed the shortness of my allotted term.

  14. It delivered me into pitch-black anguish,

    which descended while I had no power to resist its decree.

  15. It divided me between one living and one dead:

    part of me among a company of the slain, and part among a company of captives.

  16. He had been my supporter against them and among them;

    through him I strengthened my arm and shielded my back.

  17. Thus, when I lost him, I lost all those who had passed before,

    and through him the calamity that had been the lesser became the greater.

  18. He did not die until his peer had died,

    and amid his fierce assaults the fiercest lion met him.

  19. He clove him with his right hand, with the sharp sword of his spirit,

    and, unwillingly, left his opponent the left hand.

  20. He never ceased fighting mounted peers—

    but how can death be warded off when it comes from an unknown quarter?

  21. That doom brought him nothing but martyrdom,

    leaving his renown spread through every station.

  22. I exchanged one mortal for one abiding and immortal,

    and in your place I was granted consolation and reward:

  23. from the abode of affliction to the abode of divine favor,

    from this world’s transient show to the enduring substance of the next.

  24. I shall be patient, except before the onrush of a tear;

    I always see my eyelid incited to pour it.

  25. The Merciful has never tormented a mourner with tears,

    who, with the eye’s tears, soothes the embers in his heart.

  26. I have no refuge except in weeping,

    by which every festering pang of the heart is assuaged.

  27. In Jacob’s grief for Joseph there is an example for me;

    so do not reproach me today when tear follows tear.

  28. Every youth who once brought cool delight to the eye

    will fill it with grief, as once he filled it with delight.

  29. May every cloud water the grave that conceals you,

    unveiling itself above the earth where its downpour has settled.

  30. May every breeze and mercy greet you on my behalf,

    and may you have whatever you desire of light and a verdant garden.

  31. O my heart, why did you not burst apart from grief?

    O my tears, why did you not flow blood-red for him?

  32. O my forerunner, I had treasured you as riches for myself

    against a Day when the rich man will be reckoned poor.

  33. O you who laid him in the earth, did you know

    that beyond your ground he has another grave?

  34. Yes—every grave is his grave; whenever one appears,

    I read upon it a verse in remembrance of him.

  35. Though I did not visit him in life, perhaps

    we shall make the appointed Resurrection our meeting.

  36. My friends said to me, “Why did you not move him?”

    But one whom I have lodged in heart and breast has never been moved.

  37. Is anything nearer than my thought, remembrance, and mind,

    that I should ride a mount to him and urge it onward in travel?

  38. Were I to do so, I would load his limbs upon it

    and burden him, to no praiseworthy end, with hardship.

  39. Should I weary one whose life God has reclaimed,

    and unfold again what his lifetime has folded up?

  40. Behold, I have entrusted him to God alone;

    God’s aid in the darkness is sufficient victory for me.

Sol 5.6