Sol 6.1

  1. At Eid I gathered all my kin around me,

    and all my hopes lie in their gathering around me.

  2. They called me father, though I have no child among them,

    and to them I am only a paternal and maternal uncle.

  3. With them in the house, it is as though I look

    through them upon diverse peoples and generations.

  4. I prepare them for tomorrow, among those I shall count tomorrow

    as my soldiers and heroes upon this earth.

  5. How lovely the family gathering I tend and witness,

    of mothers, fathers, and children!

  6. So I see no parting through time that severs

    one at rest, one in flight, or one roaming.

  7. Nor is a cooing dove bereaved of its mate,

    nor a lion in his thicket and among his cubs.

  8. I settled in the countryside, untroubled by a tyrant

    among men, or by an idler or deceiver.

  9. I lived on fresh produce, greens and fruit,

    from my own holdings, and on sweet-flowing water there.

  10. I forbid myself meat as sustenance, deeming it

    the food of a predator, a stealthy killer like the wolf.

  11. And I may fight for peaceful living creatures among

    birds and animals, with every kind of combat.

  12. If plants had feelings, I would show them compassion,

    and cease eating plants as well.

  13. As long as I dwell in it, my village seems

    a province, and its headman seems the governor.

  14. There I have long secluded myself from people, though

    in every quarter I have my concerns and occupations.

  15. In the company of the uneducated I found affection

    I did not find among men of learning.

  16. Nor did I find in one of low, obscure repute

    what hurt me in a proud man of high renown.

  17. I bore my people's burdens, grievous as they were,

    for them, yet they never once felt my burdens.

  18. My standing fell so low that I am not even remembered

    by those who drew on my words and deeds.

  19. I did not care for my eyesight and my health

    as I cared for my pledge, at home or traveling.

  20. And while my soul is sound, I do not mind

    my long affliction of nerves and limbs.

  21. It is an inconsolable ordeal to see a country

    other than my own more deserving of me, more faithful to me.

  22. If what they neglected in me and what they abandoned

    could benefit them, my abandonment and neglect would not have lasted.

  23. Had I been afflicted with tyrants, they would not have reached

    the lengths my loved ones went in crushing and humiliating me.

  24. I seek freedom for the despoiled valley, though I bear

    from it my wounds, my pains, and my shackles.

  25. Time hastens me at times, and grants me respite

    at others; haste and respite are alike to me.

  26. Even if I reached the utmost limit of lifespans,

    I would gain nothing from years and lifetimes.

  27. In my poetry, stubborn verse and pliant verse are alike,

    just as writing much or little of it is alike.

  28. Singing upon a hill has done no good,

    nor has weeping over ruins.

  29. I have discerned in people what made me turn away,

    and in detachment lay my dignity and honor.

  30. I never guard what I possess,

    nor devise ways to recover what I have lost.

  31. Even were Time to bring bliss enough to fill my hand,

    it would come only to bore me and make me ill.

  32. I do not ask about my due and its worth,

    even were my scales and measure to assess it.

  33. If I have no court and retinue

    at any time, my ploughs and looms suffice me.

  34. Am I not among those who called upon the parties, which then wrought ruin

    and turned affairs from one state to another?

  35. Enough of an overture from the people is their return

    to what they blamed me for yesterday.

  36. I see affection among them by the hundredweight,

    yet won not a mithqal of it among them.

  37. Among them I have always been wary of the adversary's

    hidden designs, which remain in my mind and thoughts.

  38. I fear his intentions for their envoys, while they

    face boulders and thickets at his hands.

  39. His policy is still just as it was;

    he moves within it in varied colors and forms.

  40. I hope they will stand before him as equals,

    not as prey in a lion's fangs.

  41. Together they have assumed the right to determine their destiny,

    and it guarantees change and transformation.

  42. If their day does not bring all that is good,

    tomorrow holds every fulfillment and completion.

  43. The sky warns of a storm of fire—

    war—and the earth warns of an earthquake.

  44. And in their hardship they may find relief,

    as terrors are repelled by terrors.

  45. O young poets, today is your season

    and the festival of worthy, precious eloquence.

  46. You have fulfilled art's trust, yet you do not receive

    the sympathy and attention you deserve.

  47. It is enough that in art you have brothers

    among the wealthy, the lords, and the princes.

  48. You strive with ears and hearts,

    and return with neither prestige nor wealth.

  49. You possess the world's innermost secrets,

    yet occupy no lofty place within it.

  50. No room on earth is made available to you

    as it is to a soothsayer or charlatan.

  51. They said: Poetry ended after the two poets, and

    its empty arena found companionship in no one else.

  52. Nor am I alone in its service in Egypt after them;

    Egypt is full of those like me, my peers.

  53. Will a caravan that has passed and lain to rest distract them

    from what lies before them and what is coming next?

  54. If the living find no standing after the dead

    among them, there is no good in the grieving or the carefree.

  55. And every building that does not pass to

    its builder's sons is surely ruined and worn out.

  56. Better than a fertile land open to all is a protected domain

    with borders made forbidding by barrenness and drought.

  57. Sovereignty rests on troops and the fortress encircling it,

    not on fields and a river flowing through it.

Sol 6.1