Sol 5.6

  1. Do you suppose that, after you, we have not forsaken longing,

    though we thought patience would avail—yet it availed nothing?

  2. Can the terrified captive command himself to forget

    when he finds no escape from anguish or grief?

  3. Separation folded away all it would of the friends’ old covenant,

    and revealed all it would of long-concealed longing.

  4. Ask the black forty years whether any worthy man remains

    who sees life as anything but dark-hued and blackened.

  5. Though you renounced the world of evildoers,

    you made us still more disdainful of it and its people.

  6. Our loss of you was the direst calamity among those we love,

    the most painful loss among those whose survival we hoped for.

  7. Every man of letters has his own sorrow from your calamity:

    a memory circles him, and sleeplessness visits him.

  8. Were you genius’s messenger, come to us

    with its Gospel, then turning back to seek the grave?

  9. From literature you raised an everlasting kingdom,

    mustering virtues for it and making them soldiers.

  10. Whoever lacks character gains nothing from his learning,

    though he surpass his peers or overstep every bound.

  11. Tell the ignorant kings the rank that literature holds:

    do you not recognize the crown, the sword, and the royal mantle?

  12. I remember you, hope of chivalry, always aspiring

    to good deeds—bestowing them and counting them glory:

  13. an Arab youth whose whole being brimmed with high resolve,

    evoking the keen-edged sword and tawny lions.

  14. If you roused him while seeking aid, you roused a noble man

    who broke the locks of hard affairs whenever his aid was sought—

  15. noble in nature, never betraying the protection owed his friend

    nor breaking a pledge made to his companion.

  16. O Hafiz, if you depart, then a nation’s poet departs—

    a nation assailed by time’s dust-dark, bitter calamities.

  17. And if the voice that once rang high is gone,

    then gone is a country’s glory, which we could never restore.

  18. We have preserved your works, abundant in luxuriant shade;

    the nights shall dry up while they remain green and dewy.

  19. Above them birds shall linger, each one singing,

    reminding every lover who forgot Najd of Najd.

  20. One seeks refuge in the lightning, calling love back to mind;

    another clings to the wind to ward off thirst.

  21. The peoples of Ḍād received news of your death with bowed heads,

    and grief began utterly demolishing their standards.

  22. Though the Nile Valley passed the night grieving after you,

    news of you terrified China and India too.

  23. And though Lebanon came to evening overwhelmed by sorrow,

    Baghdad awoke utterly distraught.

  24. The lands of the Umayyads could command no patience,

    nor did the land of the Hijaz bear a youth so steadfast.

  25. Bereaved women strung their tears for you into a necklace,

    as you were wont, before this day, to string its beads.

  26. The mother of tongues has been bereaved of her friend;

    and if you were not her friend, you were her dutiful father and grandfather.

  27. She walked, writhing behind your bier, and whenever

    the caller spoke your name, he renewed her grief.

  28. When she reached the grave, she fell upon her face,

    wailing and lamenting the cruel extremity of her anguish.

  29. You entered the abode of the silent dead, and they cried, “God is greatest!”

    They came to you, delegation ushering delegation around you.

  30. They saw a poet whose glory even Khosrow’s never equaled,

    nor the glory of Dhu al-Qarnayn when he raised the barrier.

  31. Poetry is nothing but an abode of immortality for one

    who desires a life in remembrance or chooses eternity.

  32. Dwell there, your love never turned away from their homes,

    and leave behind a frivolous people who deny earnestness.

  33. You suffered, complaining of a tyrant’s disposition in them:

    the more affection you gave, the more estrangement they returned.

  34. Gently now: you have left your world victorious;

    and forgive—for a free man bears no grudge.

  35. As for the swift-paced mounts, they have indeed grown weary—

    tears prolonged their rapid course behind their passing trains.

  36. Hot tears are driven by grief’s inward fire, just as

    they course, urged through the eye-corners, as mounts are urged on.

  37. They journey at evening and morning with the company, swift;

    yet love never journeys away from them, evening or morning.

  38. They traverse settlement after settlement, arriving with sorrow;

    they gather everyone, leaving neither graybeard nor beardless youth.

  39. A man who has peers, when death overtakes him,

    is not like one who has no equal in all the worlds.

  40. Weigh people well, if you are discerning, and do not be

    like one who deliberately seeks error and imagines it right guidance.

  41. Describe what the Nile must suffer from its poets:

    do you not see how few they are, though numerous in count?

  42. Though a partisan may forsake fairness in judgment, possessed by passion,

    be free yourself; do not become passion’s slave.

  43. And when people appraise men in a public gathering,

    do not utter an ugly slur and suppose it criticism.

  44. Can the pens of young men not discern sound judgment—

    pens that plunge into reputations and make them a watering place?

  45. They rallied, circulating blame and praise with all their might,

    yet neither spoke truthful blame nor offered worthy praise.

  46. The man dwelling amid decay has had his authority suspended in the dust,

    and now he can neither loose nor bind.

  47. If he opposed you, he would see in you the terror of his ghoul

    when it attacks—or find you deadlier than his ghoul.

  48. When time devours men, it devoured him too;

    but when it would bury great works, they thwart its burial.

  49. Peace be upon you from a brother true to you,

    who holds you nearer the farther you have gone from him.

  50. Your portion from me in elegy is a singular poem,

    as you yourself were peerless in your genius.

Sol 5.6