Sol 6.1

  1. I lay sleepless; one like me would lie sleepless if he remembered.

    So my heart was nearly torn apart by anguish.

  2. And I spent a night in torment, its star gone,

    save sparks flashing from the side of my breast.

  3. I would have found comfort in them, but for a blaze I cannot bear

    in my heart—passion fans it, so it scorches.

  4. And I weep with streaming tears that do not quench

    a raging blaze; yet I spent the night choking on them.

  5. I endure sleeplessness; tears are of no use,

    nor is the star visible, nor is the night merciful.

  6. Nor is sleep attainable, nor is dawn rising,

    nor is patience within my power, nor is thought unfettered.

  7. Nor, if I complain of my cares, can I find my way

    to someone who kindly asks about my condition.

  8. And nothing stole my peace but my tender concern for my homeland

    and my fear for it in the face of vultures soaring overhead.

  9. And my people are asleep, heedless, even if they walk

    upon the earth; if I warn them, they will not believe.

  10. Awake! For Time, because of your drunken stupor, has been

    completing its plot against you and carrying it out.

  11. Do you accept humiliation whose like none would accept

    save one who cowers, with terror surrounding him?

  12. Sons of the East, but for your ignorance and your waywardness

    and your weakness, no eastern land would have submitted to the West.

  13. You have clung to things that bring ruin, yet it is only

    to the means of deliverance that one ought to cling.

  14. Is there no admonition for you in the voice of one like me?

    Is there nothing to unsettle you in the rebuke of one like me?

  15. I fear for you a foreseeable calamity

    that will block your paths and hem you in.

  16. Prepare a defensive fortress against it, to protect

    your lives from it, and do not become divided.

Sol 6.1