Sol 5.6

  1. Tell those who, when they once called

    me to excess, found I refused;

  2. and when I commanded them, it was as though

    I, in commanding them, had forbidden them:

  3. Yours are the lowlands, while for me

    there is no home but beside al-ʿAyyūq.

  4. How long you strayed upon the path—

    the path of noble deeds—while I found my way.

  5. How often I saved you from calamity,

    though none sustained me when I faltered.

  6. How often you incurred guilt, and I paid the ransom,

    while you would not ransom me, were I to sin.

  7. You denied the man who, had he come

    to me on a day of famine, I would have feasted.

  8. And you profaned a sanctuary of your own

    which, had it depended on me, I would have defended.

  9. Do not aspire to what I have attained,

    when you have not done what I have done.

  10. Do not engage me in cunning,

    for if I played you at guile, I would prove its master.

  11. Come, show me from among you

    some noble deed—for I have shown you many.

  12. I acted contrary to your conduct:

    when you betrayed me, I kept faith.

  13. Do not tear down what noble men

    have built for you, and what I too have built.

  14. I am a man of action: when I say

    a thing, I do it; what I lay out, I carry through.

  15. And if I rebelled, it was in the cause of one

    who calls to a broader way that I rebelled.

  16. And if I requite an ugly deed

    in kind, then I have transgressed.

  17. Whatever I gather is for the sake of

    generosity—all that I own and acquire.

  18. It would give me no joy if I tore

    the skin of my own body and thus took satisfaction.

  19. Take these verses—had they not

    been made in haste, I would have continued.

  20. And if I have been brief, then I have

    pondered to my utmost—or kept much veiled.

  21. And if I kept it veiled, who could

    tell that I meant my own kin?

Sol 5.6