Sol 5.6

  1. Sleeplessness has settled heavily upon my eyes,

    and parted my once-joined eyelids.

  2. Such is the state of one who keeps the nights company

    and spends his life enduring the hardship of the years.

  3. When a man reaches sixty years of age,

    his utmost lot is groan following groan.

  4. Was I not the companion of men who perished

    and went away to the graves, leaving me behind?

  5. Whoever lives on from one generation to another

    will live in the latter age bereft of companions.

  6. I was born in the homeland of the clan of Banu Kharus,

    and at Suni my infant amulets were cut away.

  7. I spent my youth in Oman,

    keeping company with everyone possessed of learning and faith.

  8. I sailed the sea from east to west,

    upon the waves’ backs, within the ship’s belly.

  9. I traversed the earth, its dwelling places desolate,

    effaced of every spindle and spring.

  10. How many a noble horse I led as a remount

    beside a mighty, headlong, tireless she-camel.

  11. How many lovely robes of honor I wore,

    and how many a fair crown rested upon my head.

  12. How many blessings I enjoyed,

    and how many graceful, wide-eyed maidens I regarded askance.

  13. Of them the days have left me nothing

    but regret and streaming tears.

  14. They passed as though they were jumbled dreams,

    or a mirage shimmering upon the hard plain.

  15. Youth’s few nights were stolen away from me,

    and long survival repaid me with graying temples.

  16. From the vanished days of my youth I stored away

    no treasured reserve, carefully guarded and secure.

  17. I thought the prime of youth, like the days, would last—

    mere wishes; and wishes are like conjectures.

  18. I wept for youth and its two companions

    with the weeping of the sorrowful, grieving hoopoe.

  19. Welcome, welcome, gray hair, my guest!

    And welcome, righteous, faithful brother.

  20. What an excellent companion—if only my life

    would endure with it, now that it has become my mate.

  21. It is enough for me that it came as a warning,

    heralding death and the turning wheel of fate.

  22. And this body of mine has become a decrepit crone;

    what else is the state of the decrepit aged?

  23. Leave me to weep however I please;

    the bonds of my life and my peers—leave me.

  24. When part of me has died, how can the rest

    live? Can movement arise from stillness?

  25. Had I been one to heed—or had calamities admonished me,

    through their clamor and their stillness.

  26. God’s decree goes on, and I am content

    with God’s decree in worldly life and in faith.

  27. If I should be fortunate, then indeed I

    seek no aid beyond His decree.

  28. But if I am the wretched one, evil is my fortune;

    I have neither power nor helper.

  29. O my Lord, my deeds are vile,

    yet in You I hold the creed of steadfast hope.

  30. May You make forgiveness a certainty for me,

    and raise me in sound certainty of faith.

  31. Then lodge me, through Your grace, O my God,

    and through Your pardon, in the abodes of Illiyyin.

  32. Your blessings and peace upon the intercessor of

    creation—Amina’s son, the Trustworthy.

Sol 5.6