يروح ويغدو علينا الحمام — Sardar

Death visits us evening and morning,

yet every eye sleeps, oblivious to it.

Like grazing livestock:

this one is slaughtered, that one put to pasture.

In comparison, nothing sets us apart

except our minds and this speech.

Death alone suffices to destroy us;

so why are arrows feathered,

and long, slender spears gripped,

and the keen, two-edged sword carried?

As though we were created for the ravages of death,

a drink it savors, or food.

The distance will be folded away for him whose life

is carried onward by morning or darkness.

Nights pass as clouds pass,

and dawn amid them is a lightning flash one watches.

Their crimes against us are decay,

and their excuses to us are illness.

Each day they strike a blow against us;

why not alternate one year with another?

We blame the physician—yet what is his crime?

The sickness of death is incurable.

When living has totaled a young man's span,

what lies behind him and ahead are alike.

A man is not shielded from his doom

by Iraq where he dwells, or by Syria.

To what protecting sanctuary can one appeal,

if Zamzam and the Maqam grant no refuge?

The gazelles of the flatlands have a place to fall,

while white-footed ibex find refuge in the mountains.

If storm winds bend the great trees,

then surely the thumam grass will bend.

Does long defiance benefit you,

when time's vicissitudes hold the reins?

Survival tells us of annihilation,

and staying tells us of departure.

Thus has time decreed for its people:

one multitude passes, another comes.

It soothes us by nursing us on hopes,

and before long comes the weaning.

You blame the coming of gray hair out of fear,

as though the days of youthful dalliance guaranteed safety.

Yet the decrepit, aged man fears nothing

but what the young man also dreads.

We excused time for the deaths of the base;

what excuse has it when the noble die?

For us, killing souls is forbidden;

how, then, was the forbidden made lawful for it?

Rites [possibly 'hooves'], worn down by sore feet,

in whose wake the hump is severed.

By your life, a man is nothing but a phantom,

and the pleasure of living is only a dream.

O discerning man, be measured,

and one like you aspires to the unattainable.

Be gentle; take your time, for solace

is a resting place to which all people return.

Patience is your habit whenever

mighty calamities rattle their thunderbolts.

They pass over you like winds

met by Yadhbul or Shamam.

You wrap your cloak and loosen your waistcloth

at a moment when belts are drawn tight.

Your reason consoles you for those gone,

and your knowledge that nothing endures.

Your own soul is more eloquent than a preacher,

and too great for anguish to carry it away.

You yourself teach us how to stand firm

when mighty calamities shake us.

You bear their burdens, making light of them,

though mature camels would bellow if they bore them.

If sorrow does not bring back those who have gone,

it is nothing but heartache and sin.

Parting from a sister is the saddest parting

over which streaming tears have been freely shed.

A young man's loss of his sibling is grievous;

for sorrow at such a loss he is not blamed.

Yet the steadfast man shows you his teeth in a smile,

while a blaze of grief burns in his heart's core.

And if your eye has erred by weeping,

your hands have taught it the rainclouds' art.

So may rain bless her laid in the earth,

for whose loss secluded chambers and tents receive condolences.

Never have we seen a pearl or a flower

with shells and bud-sheaths made of dust.

Should we ask the clouds to water your soil,

when your brother's bounty is softly falling rain?

And over it the breeze's skirts are trailed,

and wine draws sustenance from its fragrance.

It is for her loss that young she-camels moan,

and doves lament above the branches.

O Mount al-Tur, may you never be forsaken

by clouds that quench burning thirst.

May they linger, full-laden, in the two open grounds

of yours, until hills are level with hollows.

May they favor you with she-camels ten months pregnant, in labor,

while heights other than yours receive only rainless clouds.

If you could be brought back through combat,

we would not lack a vast, devouring army,

or horses galloping with armored men,

with battle-dust for their riders' graves.

But this is a state whose due

from us is our salutation and farewell.