Sol 6.1

  1. Is this the homeland's and people's loss of you, or war

    in which the homeland and people endure hardships?

  2. The terror is not from the enemies' fire and iron,

    but from the horror of parting from you: that is the war.

  3. I received reassuring news of recovery,

    but had not reached evening before the grievous news came.

  4. I wailed, and the birds around me wailed; beneath me heaved

    the place where I stood; water ebbed, and grass burst into flame.

  5. And the truest mourner in calamity is one who weeps

    for a lofty one falling, and a radiant one growing dim.

  6. You earnestly sought a goal, crouching and leaping;

    when all was over, crouching and leaping were alike.

  7. Your work and wasting illness contested your two sides:

    one had a side, and the other had a side.

  8. You endured the strain of pushing and pulling between them,

    and found no rest until the pushing and pulling ended.

  9. You departed, a martyr to disease, after battles

    long drawn out, with neither spear-thrusts nor blows.

  10. How much anguish those ribs carried,

    as you passionately loved your people's future!

  11. How can medicine rightly treat an ailment in others,

    when medicine failed them in warding off your illness?

  12. The house of glory, bounty, and generosity is bereft of you,

    and the hall of noble deeds—or are East and West bereft?

  13. A dark, desolate grave in the earth's soil enfolded you;

    yet how often the spacious world proved too narrow for your hopes!

  14. And I, whose qibla is the resting place of guidance,

    am close by; but can nearness to the silent one avail?

  15. I circle it, seeking refreshment from its fragrance,

    while clouds have greeted it at dawn with their first showers:

  16. dues owed to one whose deeds pleased God's servants,

    and whose standing the Lord honored in this world.

  17. If a noble man's body were like his remembrance,

    the dust would not have claimed any of your pure body.

  18. I yearn for the past, though it will not return;

    the caravan has carried me into what I dread.

  19. As though I were the departing travelers' chanter, past me passes

    one company, never to return, and another leaves me.

  20. I patiently bore my bereavement and calamity in losing them,

    but the bereavement and calamity of losing you have not grown lighter.

  21. Who can grant me another sight of your face,

    when curtains and veils have risen between us?

  22. I pinned my hope on solace after the forty days;

    yet they passed, and my sorrows and anguish stayed as they were.

  23. The loyal came to the commemoration, and there gathered

    their righteous elders and their noble youths.

  24. They pour out tenderness and mercy in whispered words

    to you; whispered communion is neither uproar nor clamor.

  25. They urged one another to tend what you entrusted them with—their house—

    forever: well-guided striving and unceasing toil.

  26. Take, then, what you will of my tears and of my blood;

    my eye is yours, faithful to your pact with it, and my heart too.

  27. If burning grief is now your due from me,

    then pride and exultation through you were once my due.

  28. My verse kept pace with your just judgment, and there converged

    upon goodness what you long for and what I long for.

  29. What I entrusted to you was not this world's fleeting goods,

    but feeling and intellect in your keeping.

  30. You were the one around whom men of dignity rallied;

    their resolve never stumbled, nor did their judgment miss its mark.

  31. Free men supported you from every side,

    with the resolve of the gray-haired and the resolve of the young.

  32. Many a hero's judgment made the sword needless

    in its keenness, and writings took the place of his battalions.

  33. Had you wished to draw on the valor of your valley's people,

    they would have risen to its defense, in aid against assailants,

  34. and for your name—the name of honor—for as long as

    the stars and meteors bear it along their courses.

  35. Whoever lives forever in every conscience

    needs no statues or monuments for immortality.

  36. Every leader who follows your course in the homeland

    has his deeds as his followers there, and as his party.

  37. Whoever leaves this world, his legacy being

    his virtues for posterity, will have that legacy multiplied by posterity.

  38. Whoever's own soul does not enable him to attain glory

    has no one but himself to blame.

  39. Whoever will not give his life to ransom the realm

    has no claim to food or drink within it.

  40. Drought is not the homeland's loss of its fruits;

    rather, the loss of men is drought.

  41. War is about to flare across the whole earth,

    so nothing dry or green will remain upon it.

  42. Like beasts, people roam upon it, ravening:

    a lion in one quarter, and a wolf in another.

  43. They want it as plunder while they tear it down,

    yet only ruins are left as plunder among them.

  44. Would that you were among the witnesses on the day of peace,

    to efface, after war, what war has wrought!

  45. And the valley's due from time would be made whole

    by your judgment there, not by pleading or usurpation.

  46. If time's sin is that you are absent,

    then, in what is here and present, that sin is forgiven.

  47. Beyond your noble traits, sufficient for you are

    your two brothers, your two sons, your kin, and your companions.

  48. You left them after you as brothers in good works,

    united in those works by care and love.

  49. Every place of yours among them they have graced

    with your goodness there, a bounty for its dwellers.

  50. Such are the traits of noble men, who work and have

    no gain or profit but the honor of their homelands.

Sol 6.1