1. Bear my greetings to the brethren, O lightning;

    will you bear back a reply that brings my heart relief?

  2. Have I a place among them that I deserve,

    that I may ask to be brought near and given precedence?

  3. Let me attend the festival’s company, rendering in full

    the honor and gracious praise that are their due—

  4. warm feelings from Egypt’s peers and neighbors,

    matched in them by the guests from Europe.

  5. They crown this nation with honor in its poets,

    and in all the ways they have honored every people and clime.

  6. The bonds between East and West have become

    means of reform and instruments of right guidance.

  7. Had the League of Nations grasped them, it would have guarded against

    the return, through them, of Wilhelm and others like Wilhelm.

  8. Had every kingdom preserved them, it would have kept faith

    with a covenant guaranteeing peace and arbitration.

  9. If humankind makes love its judge, and love is sound,

    then love stands above laws and decrees.

  10. Whoever among them is a scholar and a teacher,

    every science and lesson in those bonds serves the good.

  11. The world cannot be set right without an overseer

    watching over humankind, vigilant while beliefs remain free.

  12. Surely the one who has endured wars and their terrors

    has the greatest right to prevent and outlaw war.

  13. Throughout the earth, every people has come to demand

    a right ordained for it throughout all the rest of the earth.

  14. All the children of humanity have become equal upon it,

    so none upon it serves without himself being served.

  15. In this age, even an oppressor need not despair,

    and in this age the oppressed have no excuse.

  16. There is no true victor save one who eases his conscience

    with whispered counsel when the tyrant rises against the despoiled.

  17. Are they three envoys, or three kingdoms?

    Count my comrades today by the number of lands.

  18. For ages I bore for them the banner of their struggle,

    and returned with nothing in me but a defeated man’s anguish.

  19. Though I be denied remembrance among them,

    I am not denied remembrance by history.

  20. If I have found no share of rank or riches,

    my sufficient solace is that such a share was never allotted.

  21. I seek whatever pleases them, as though I were

    near at hand yet unknown, yearning after what does not exist.

  22. Why must I suffer from my homeland and my nation

    the burning pangs of a fevered man, though I have no fever?

  23. I leave one who persists upon the earth, bristling with thorns,

    and enter the presence of one who guards a poisoned land.

  24. Do I build for them a lofty monument of glory,

    only to end buried beneath the ruins of what was demolished?

  25. I fear for them the tyranny of passing nights,

    though their own aggression has shown me no mercy.

  26. How many shackles from their hands has my hand shattered,

    while my own shackle remains upon my hand, unbroken!

  27. I grieve deeply for the farmers amid their crises—

    is there among my people any farmer not beset by hardship?

  28. He gives the valley his entire life,

    yet he is neither clothed nor fed.

  29. His present condition and ultimate fate preoccupy me,

    and he is distressed by a secret of destiny, concealed.

  30. He fears tomorrow after condemning his yesterday—

    has a single day ever passed that was not condemned?

  31. It angers me that a struggler goes unrewarded,

    and that I meet a sinner who is held blameless.

  32. Though I restrain my soul’s anger at Fate

    when my own right is at stake, my anger for others cannot be stifled.

  33. Who will grant me authority among humankind, and power,

    that I may judge justly between two men: a starving man and a glutton?

  34. Separation is dearer to me than to see them both together

    while every dispute between them remains unresolved.

Sol 6.1