صدقت علاك الوعد والميعادا — أحمد الكاشف

Your exalted rank kept its promise and appointed hour,

coming to this protected realm to inspect and behold it;

you answered the call of every loyal, sincere soul,

to see a flourishing land and its people.

The noblemen’s steeds bore you—and surely that was

recompense for the favors you had hung upon noble necks—

making for the Nile, purest of shores,

to meet your father and your glorious kin.

More dutiful than any who sacrificed, offered, or ransomed himself,

more chaste than any who grew rich, built high, and ruled.

You kissed his palm, and he kissed your cheeks,

and you sought still more of his pleasure in you, and he gave more.

His health returned, and his youth came back,

when he found you as he had wished and desired.

He is tender toward you—and tender only toward

one who has brought honor to fathers and forefathers.

What his soul loved most and found repose in

is what you attain through strength and striving.

He secured immortality by being your father;

all destinies and all ages were gathered in him.

Upper Egypt took its share of the preparations,

while all the rest hastened, hoping for provision from you.

But for your father’s dignity amid his delegations,

the place would have surged and overflowed with joy.

Those were blessed visits for him;

then the seasons passed, and the festivals ended.

There you personally administered your all-embracing justice,

and witnessed the good outcome of what you generously bestowed.

You saw how, in the desert, there were transformed

those jagged rocks into a welcoming bed.

The death of a fourth among the leaders grieved you sorely;

they had been the state’s guardian peers.

While cities and villages celebrate you, should

the Valley tremble in mourning for him?

Had the people’s meeting with you not compensated them

for him, their sorrow would have lingered and grown.

You continued to master the tyrant’s might

and turn it back to obedience and affection for you,

until his fleet arrived bearing his peace,

after he had driven harsh calamities onward.

The two princes came to the country and firmly secured

their peoples’ covenant with it—and did so well.

O you who spare the envious from the evil they

have laid upon you: thus you acquit the envious;

and you who grant the disobedient, hostile foe a chance

to return as your helper after disobeying and opposing you.

Were your punishment of the newspapers not to fold them away,

time itself would doom them, on your behalf, to languish unsold.

One who persists in conflict to attain a purpose

is not like one who persists in denial out of sheer obstinacy.

Resolve means that today you ward off harm;

tenderness means that you heal resentments.

You may restore to your magnanimity everyone who

seeks in you a place of reward and return.

Can any man in Egypt fault a policy of yours

that delighted Damascus and amazed Baghdad?

You are indeed an excellent autocrat in government,

if a reformer’s firmness is to be called autocracy.

You have proved true in inner purpose and resolve,

in readiness for kingship and preparation.

If those before you were slow to reach their goals,

you alone have hastened the goals.

And if you have furnished the needy with public services,

you have also bestowed right guidance upon the heedless.

Greater than the conquest of kingdoms is the conquest achieved by one

who leads peoples toward perfection and guides them.

Complete the work: you have pleased Egypt and its people,

as you have pleased the king, noble of heart.