Sol 5.6

  1. If Iblis has an army with which he makes his assault,

    the soul is the mightiest of all whom Iblis summons.

  2. May your Lord never kindle the fires of youth for them;

    toward wine they set out at noon and in the pre-dawn dark.

  3. You hope for a kindness from Time, though Time is under legal restraint—

    how, when its insolvency and bankruptcy stand revealed?

  4. People have so gilded falsehood that the ignorant among them

    came to think that prophecy is mere embellishment and fraud.

  5. A calamity came down from the upper celestial sphere;

    in it the people’s cowards and lions were made equal.

  6. If a nation’s sleepers, buried in the dust, were to rise,

    the cities—and the smooth white blades—would have no room for them.

  7. When shall I leave this world of mine, which has betrayed me,

    and erasure overtake my name among all names?

Sol 5.6