Sol 6

  1. Art is a lovely garden that never wearies.

    And you, Umm Kulthum, are its nightingale.

  2. You are more capable than anyone who sang a rhymed verse

    As a melody echoed after its singing.

  3. I fear that my infatuation with it will expose me,

    For I am only an old man, not immune to error.

  4. Ask the people about me before blaming me; inquire,

    And after that, my reproacher, blame me.

  5. Let no young maiden be frightened by my words,

    For the tips of my arrows are not poisoned.

  6. The phonograph held songs you had sung

    And carried them from region to region.

  7. You gathered the scattered songs together

    Until none of them remained apart.

  8. Umm Kulthum, we are grateful, for

    You came flying above the clouds.

  9. Will you listen to a poem through which I express

    My admiration and respect for you, Umm Kulthum?

  10. Do not think I spoke to curry favor;

    That is neither my nature nor my character.

  11. Umm Kulthum, sing, for love is a melody

    Delighted in by the old and the young alike.

  12. Sing, sing, while the strings ring out,

    For through songs nations rise.

  13. To hear your melodious voice,

    Umm Kulthum, the crowd came pressing together.

  14. Your surging voice has stirred and delighted it,

    And it heaves like a sea of crashing waves.

  15. Sing, for after its darkness our night

    Sees light smiling on our faces.

  16. It is as though we are in a battle in which

    Joys attack us and sorrows are defeated.

  17. Sing for us, then sing again, for on this night

    Feelings collide with minds.

  18. Song draws me back toward life

    Even as my feet walk the road to death.

  19. Beauty can be heard just as beauty can be seen;

    Neither brings the weariness of satiety.

  20. Each seeks a heart to possess,

    And the human heart is divided between them.

  21. A person does not fully attain pleasure

    Until both hearing and sight have been delighted.

  22. Rejoice in your world and drink in its sights,

    For afterward you will see neither sun nor moon.

  23. Blame a soul that, alas, has squandered its chance,

    And do not reproach fate for what you have missed.

  24. Why should it trouble you, in the age we live in,

    That a poet openly says what is in his heart?

  25. They said I disbelieved, but I did not, as they claimed.

    Has everyone who speaks a clear truth disbelieved?

  26. How lovely is beauty, offering its fragrant blossoms,

    And how lovely love, whose fire casts sparks!

  27. The tall palm may drop dates for me,

    For I have thrown a stone at its cluster.

  28. There is no good in a tall palm that has grown high

    Yet drops no fruit to those beneath it.

  29. I am in a garden where the flowers listen

    To the nightingale, gathered around it in groups.

  30. Umm Kulthum, sing, for when

    You have gone from us, song will remain as your trace.

  31. Umm Kulthum, you revived our hopes

    After a time of painful despair.

  32. Umm Kulthum, we are a nation that has labored

    Under calamities for ages; so console us.

  33. Umm Kulthum, despair will kill us

    If you refuse, while hopes give us life.

  34. I have borne a burden young men could not bear;

    A man of twenty is no equal to one of seventy.

  35. I entered my hell before my afterlife

    And tasted zaqqum and ghislin in this life.

  36. O star appearing in the sky of the Two Rivers,

    We greet you in crowds, so greet us.

  37. You sent forth a beautiful light in whose rays

    We see beauty in form after form.

  38. Umm Kulthum, greet us with your song;

    Greet both our angels and our devils.

  39. Yes, a melody you sang drove us mad,

    Though before it we were not mad.

  40. What blame is mine if, in my old age, I swore

    To court only wide-eyed, graceful women?

  41. I have respect for the laws of life,

    So I will not exchange what is tangible for what is imagined.

  42. I am a man of doubt; no faith binds me

    To a good that is something intangible.

  43. How lovely a garden whose flowers stand in rows,

    As though they were peacocks' tails!

  44. And how lovely a nightingale in its thicket,

    Pouring out songs at night after the first light of dawn.

  45. And how lovely Umm Kulthum when she begins

    To sing and plays upon the minds inside our heads.

  46. I am in a paradise of art whose fruits

    Hang near; it has my praise and reverence.

  47. Yet many a devil there tries

    To drive me by deceit from my paradises.

  48. I seek refuge in God, my Lord, who protects me

    From every devil when I seek His help.

  49. Umm Kulthum, poetry is kin

    To song, as the sun is to the day.

  50. Sing a beautiful poem and save a man,

    An old man worn down by worry and misery.

  51. Sing, sing until dawn appears

    And night, all of night and its dusk, departs.

  52. Umm Kulthum, this is a matter we share;

    If you fall silent, we cannot agree on it.

  53. Umm Kulthum, sing to console us,

    For in a few days we shall part.

  54. You appeared after a wait that nearly killed us,

    Like a star shining in the sky of art.

  55. How beautiful art is, letting down its flowing locks,

    While light streams from its star!

  56. We waited as the fire of longing burned,

    Nearly consumed by its scorching heat.

  57. Sing for us, then sing again; we are people

    Who race toward song whenever it is sweet.

  58. Let us seize these hours while they are here,

    For I do not trust time to stay fair.

  59. They say song is food that revives the soul,

    And what they said of it is true.

  60. How often it has straightened what is crooked in people,

    And how often it has refined people's character.

  61. Princess of art, I am one of your subjects;

    We long for your singing, this laughing, weeping song.

  62. In your voice art has found its happiness,

    For every day it kisses your lips.

  63. The phonograph used to reproduce your voice for us;

    How lovely, then, are both the sound reproduced and its living source!

  64. I never thought, until you graciously came,

    That God would bring your world and ours together.

  65. Umm Kulthum, the people cherish love for you;

    Who brought you to a nation that loves you?

  66. Whenever our hearts wished for something,

    We wished for nothing but to meet you.

  67. That wish was beset by doubts,

    Like a beautiful rose among thorns.

  68. A woman once asked me, weeping,

    Having seen me weep after holding back.

  69. She said, 'What thought made you weep?'

    I said, 'The thing within me that made you weep.'

  70. What will the judge of love decide between them

    Tomorrow, when the accused and the complainant meet?

Sol 6