Sol 5.6

  1. I confide to you, Majd al-Din, a plight whose very hearing

    weighs heavily upon the glorious and the great.

  2. I have been stricken in an eye that long kept vigil with me,

    fashioning praise or stringing together eulogy.

  3. With it I served letters for fifty years,

    and strained it in the service of the caliphs.

  4. How often I sent it forth to praise kings, and thereby earned

    claims upon the generous and the noble.

  5. At its loss every salon and assembly fell idle,

    and the meeting place of men of letters grew desolate.

  6. If only its tear ducts would help me weep,

    I would mourn its days with blood.

  7. The hand of time struck that eye with a mote,

    replacing its darkness with a white glare.

  8. It clouded my life, and turned to grit

    its draughts, once delicate and clear—

  9. harshness from the days after affection,

    and plunder from the days after gifts.

  10. The world turned hostile toward me and arrayed

    the arrows of treachery against me after loyalty.

  11. Thus, though once beloved to me, it became

    a place where nothing is more hateful to me than remaining alive.

  12. I remember it at peace—yet many a violent gale

    blew from my own quarter, gentle and mild.

  13. And here I am, like one entombed in a corner of a dwelling,

    my mornings and evenings there alike.

  14. Even my envier softens and weeps in pity for me—

    how far he had once been from tenderness and tears!

  15. O what a loss, whose blow overwhelmed me;

    I spend the night over it, refusing consolation.

  16. Alas for the back of gray old age that I have mounted,

    leaving the days of youth behind me!

  17. O best of men to be summoned on a day of battle,

    and noblest of those sought on a day of ease;

  18. you who possess all that every hopeful petitioner desires,

    and all an importunate outcast, bereft of wealth and sufficiency, seeks;

  19. O you who clothed the world, throughout the days of your reign,

    in a mantle of splendid beauty and radiance;

  20. you who governed it until it rested secure, and adorned it

    with firm resolve, penetrating judgment, and grace.

  21. Thus, through noble forefathers, there endured

    ancient sovereignty, a valiant spirit, and proud dignity.

  22. You founded fresh glory, not content

    with an inheritance of bygone glory and eminence.

  23. You revived a justice whose fame perfumed the earth,

    as a garden’s fragrance spreads after rain.

  24. If rain clouds were ever measured against the bounty

    of your two hands, we would count them among the misers.

  25. And when the year’s sky withholds its rain, you are

    the orphans’ spring and the poor man’s pasture.

  26. I call upon you, hoping that my need will be met;

    and one like you answers my call.

  27. Why should I not call upon you on a day of hardship,

    when you answered me in the days of my ease?

  28. One like you grants kindness; and favor has been bestowed

    by the gifts of his two hands upon men of merit.

  29. You are worthy of taking me into your favor, and able

    to end my malady, knowing its cure.

  30. I have no guarantor against fate; your judgment is my support,

    nor has any endeavor of mine failed while you were my hope.

  31. My radiant praises of you traverse the earth,

    and my prayer knocks upon the gates of heaven.

  32. Yet though my dwelling is under your protection, I fear for my estate—

    and fear oppression: what then of my forlornness and misery?

  33. May your illustrious character never know estrangement—

    far be cruelty and harshness from it!

  34. Nor may a petitioner’s hopes before it prove false,

    when sincerity and true loyalty are his two intercessors.

  35. O son of the noble forefathers of old, show kindness

    to me—for I am indeed the last of the poets.

  36. Be my intercessor for the caliph’s bounty,

    and obtain my request, so long as you are among my intercessors.

  37. Speak a good word, for which tomorrow you will be repaid with good:

    this world is no abode of recompense.

Sol 5.6