ألقيت عبأك في مدى الميدان — أحمد الكاشف

You laid down your burden in the field's expanse,

and attained the finest aims of humankind.

You spent your life in this world working

for remembrance and a long second life.

And you kept the noble pledge to one who trusted,

for whom fidelity was part of faith.

For ages, a pledge bore Egypt's trust,

yours, on behalf of Egypt's foundations and pillars.

You concealed it while alive, out of mercy for your people,

and made your death the time of its disclosure.

Your secret—time's own secret—was revealed at

this passing by the letters of your friends.

Was all they said for truth and for

history, or to stir sorrows?

At your loss, they recalled the loss of Egypt and her people,

in conduct, dignity, and existence.

They passed accounts of you among themselves, while they stood on

Egypt's horizons and you lay in shrouds.

Each vindicates his actions in predicaments

with his past evidence and with proof.

And every narrator has his excuse for events

that could not possibly have been avoided.

A distressing memory—and the worst things that hurt a man

are an anxious conscience and a bewildered heart.

The homeland's reckoning with men has come,

and it is reckoner and requiter enough.

Their conjectures drove those reckoning to and fro,

from every direction and every place.

They ask one another for certainty to relieve them,

and before you the two factions seek judgment.

The minister did not betray his lord; rather,

the Germans' friendship betrayed him yesterday.

A king departed, and another came, successful

for his country; to him, the two were alike.

If the emir's uncle was not his replacement,

then who was worthier of that sovereignty?

The man whose crown time carried off was not

the only one among those who lost their crowns.

Time, in which we have seen no strength

for justice, is the sinful offender.

Could he choose his own fate,

he whose displeasure and approval count alike?

Had the matter been in our power, we would not have been enemies

to those people, kin and neighbors.

Our hands scorch them with fires, while in

our livers dwell secret whispers and lasting tenderness.

We did not know whether they were Egypt's invaders or

her guardians and defenders for a time.

Which of the two factions keeps its promise,

when both have promised without a guarantee?

How often the weak have been deprived of their share

at the spoils, by the ablest of their peers!

Our booty was survival, though it was not

the nature of the brave to seek survival.

They are the ones who see every covenant

from a deceiver as worse than aggression,

and see a freely offered gift, when it comes

with humiliation, as more disastrous than deprivation.

And one who seeks help to obtain his right

through another's hands is more deserving of abandonment.

Yesterday's events carried Egypt along; where is what

men have done for the events of the present?

Did the people insist on their conditions, or

did they bring something unforeseen?

And is what I see the patience of one awaiting opportunities,

or the bewilderment of a hesitant procrastinator?

If what their adversary disclosed

was good, what wisdom lies in concealing it?

Perhaps it is the stalling through which

politics has sought to make concealment our habit.

Do Egyptians seek justice in Egypt, or

in mighty London and in Lausanne?

The earth is moving toward the twin goals of

utmost freedom and civilization.

So kingdoms shake after their stillness,

and kingdoms grow proud after humiliation.

You were the first to warn of the flood,

and I warn of the flood's return.

Where are Egypt's devoted advocates among

all peoples and all countries,

telling of her hopes something other than what

the purveyors of falsehood and slander tell?

If what I hope for were in force

on earth, she would have a guarantee of safety.

And all would dwell beneath the shades of peace, not

in the keeping of steel and flames.

And religion in this world is how we treat one another, which

is all that one hopes for from religions.

O master of counsel, and possessor of the judgment that

made measuring rod and balance needless,

and champion of al-Sharqiyya, whose deeds are praised by

the two Easts and the two Wests,

were you the elder of the clan or the elder of the homeland,

the country's son or its devoted father?

Heavy upon the constitution, after its founding,

was your departure from it—you, its first builder.

It wept for you through its deputies and senators,

and lamented you among nobles and notables,

and missed the hero who is a model,

a worthy one for the gray-haired and the young.

O you who leave the valley, your heart anxious

for this suffering captive within it,

what is in your soul after you left it,

other than the kindness you had offered?

More fitting for your soul, content with that as its occupation,

is to find rest in it from now on.

You bestowed longstanding affection on me, so I preserved it

for you within my heart, and it became one of my allies.

And I took from the earliest of your pages, those devoted

to goodness, my first principle and expression.

You made me speak after nights of silence

that held my heart captive before confining my tongue.

Both of us are ailing in this land, but illness has not

made you forget your duty to it, nor made me forget.

And noblest among those who hold sway over souls through care

is he who practices kindness and gratitude.

I sought truth above the two factions,

apart from the sacrificial offering I had made.

Is there a place for me in heaven, where perhaps

I might meet my companions, not the people of my time,

and flee the arrogant who feigned ignorance of

my name, then went on denying my very presence?

Does the one to whom I give my affection wrong me,

and does the one in whom I find solace increase my grief?

I am angry on behalf of the people and the valley; whoever

has ever pleased them both has indeed pleased me.