Sol 5.6

  1. I would weep for you, if tears could rise to fulfill your due,

    and I would speak, if calamities could hear.

  2. I try to outwit Time, though it is laden

    with the outcome of every calamity—and cannot be outwitted.

  3. Do not envy a bereaved man his survival:

    he who bids his beloved farewell is himself like one departing.

  4. Delay your stroke against him, O Time,

    for he has left no room in me for another affliction.

  5. Or shoot me with the arrows of your affliction, exerting all your might,

    if the bow of fortune still has strength to draw.

  6. May calamities never spare me, for I

    am calm of heart when they lead and I follow.

  7. I have lost my homelands, and the familiar comfort of their soil

    has become desolate; even their widest spaces have narrowed around me.

  8. You have made the paths of sorrow clear to me, as though

    my patience were a road along which caravans hurry and race.

  9. My capacity for consolation has grown narrow, though often

    it became spacious when every other capacity constricted.

  10. You have veiled the light from my eyes, as though the

    horizons were a west with no sunrise.

  11. Let Time boast that one calamity of mine

    can appall and terrify by the force of its fall.

  12. Shame upon the day of your death: all calamities after it

    are trifles, and no misfortune can truly grieve me.

  13. I lament our separation, yet alongside it I know

    that the road to meeting you lies broad and open.

  14. I hoped for your nearness while our dwellings were far apart;

    today even the hope of meeting you has failed.

  15. If forgetting could benefit me, I would cast it away

    out of grief for you—how much more so, when it cannot avail!

  16. Far indeed is the gathering of patience’s scattered fragments once it has fled:

    my heart lies divided among the hands of calamities.

  17. I fold my ribs over the springs of a burning thirst,

    knowing, whenever I remember you, that they cannot be quenched.

  18. I blame the long night as I await its dawn;

    or is not even the whiteness of dawn dark after you?

  19. I set out toward you along a well-trodden mountain pass

    which Death decreed could never be barred.

  20. How rugged was its road—if only it were a rent

    that the points of spears could mend!

  21. May unavenged fields of slaughter never be far from me,

    whenever upright lances are shattered there—

  22. and stalwart men vie with one another in drinking the cup of death,

    summoned by death to their allotted share, and hastening to it.

  23. Time knelt upon them with the weight of its breast,

    and the tempestuous wind of calamities swept them away.

  24. They are mute when I call—except that they are

    admonishers through what sobers the discerning; how clearly they speak!

  25. Horsemen who knew their swords as extensions

    beyond their troop, cutting down whatever they encountered.

  26. They left all mankind behind; amid their dust-cloud

    no keen sword could be glimpsed, nor any spearhead gleam.

  27. White swords flashing, coats of armor flowing full,

    horses prancing, and lances swaying.

  28. Time—whose death relentlessly ravages souls—

    for whom, then, should a noble man lay up or amass wealth?

  29. How strange that anyone should preserve the stores of his wealth

    and keep guarding them while he himself is being lost;

  30. and how strange for a heedless man, when at every turn

    the hollow of stone slabs lies spread for him as a bed.

  31. Does he suppose they did not hasten

    to drink from their cup many times what he must swallow?

  32. Had combat been able to protect you, you would have filled the field

    with sleek steeds until the barren expanse was choked by them,

  33. and raised amid the rings of armor a warrior-band

    like Time itself, lowering whom it willed and raising whom it willed.

  34. But these are the decrees of fate; before them there is

    no shelter in which to hide and no means of repelling them.

  35. O grave, within you virtues lie buried;

    do they not make you too narrow, or cause you to split apart?

  36. If you could comprehend what I say, I would dwell at length upon what

    I lament to you of my sorrows, and I would implore you.

  37. May the dawn-fresh breeze salute you, as though it

    forever breathed fragrance with its praise of you.

  38. My eyelids have watered you, for you lie beyond the reach

    of any pouring clouds that might be granted you.

  39. If this is no sacrifice offered over you, then it is

    a burning liver within me, and an aching heart.

Sol 5.6