جهاد بما ترضى انتهى لا كما تأبى — أحمد الكاشف

The struggle ended to your liking, not against your will,

and what you undertook as war became peace.

Come with the trust you have discharged,

and bring, as you please, the documents and the books.

Look out over the valley with what you have won, taking

your paths and caravans through the people's souls for its sake.

Explain their affairs to them at their festival in your honor,

and leave it as sweet discourse in their gatherings.

The air took it, fragrant, from your lips,

and sent it flying eastward and carried it westward.

The winds bear it from you at dawn, returning at dusk

to you; but for summer, they would have gathered into clouds.

Your ally called you and answered your call; enough for him,

and enough for you as a deed, that he called you and responded.

You took as you gave, apportioning like a just man,

and nothing but what was right was gained between you both.

He brought you the security you had brought him,

while their leading powers had filled the lands with terror.

This is no bond of blood you share with him,

but a benefit more exalted than kinship.

It is more fitting to regard the one you have allied with

as a lion in your forest, tame to you, not a wolf.

You lifted thereby the burden of the pact between him

and you, until it became broad and spacious.

Had you not granted Egypt control over the date of its annulment,

the good deed of the two who concluded it would have been a sin.

And had you not made him bear some of its burden for her,

she would stagger tomorrow in anguish from bearing it all.

Whoever has power to amend through friendship and consent

has power to replace it, in due course, by force.

And equal in attaining wishes, if they are attainable,

are one who pursues them by steps and one who seeks them by leaps.

You soared, leaving no earthly stratagem

for anyone who sets screens and veils in your way.

And he returned, in the radiance of midmorning, to faith

in the blessing of your achievement—he who had deemed it a calamity.

Had Egypt's people kept pace with the times,

her parties would today have returned to her as one party.

Had they done justice to their homelands, their mother,

they would all have gathered in love around their mother.

No fearful person shuns sword and fire

as much as my hearing shuns slander and abuse.

Perhaps the talk now engrossing some of them

is lingering reproach before you, which you answer with reproach.

Then the mind of their gray-haired gains strength,

and the strength of their young gains reason.

And pleasing all the people would be a miracle;

among the people there must be an angry group.

The fertility of your character has freed you from every need,

and all wealth lies in possessing a fertile character.

Enough for you as enjoyment and rest in life

is your toil in this world to bring the people happiness.

And enough reward for you for the servants you aided

against time's vicissitudes is your pleasing the Lord.

Through your spirit's gentleness, not your body's strength,

you attained the immense goal and the difficult aim.

For what you sought, you used no means

or equipment except your conscience and your intellect.

Had you been rewarded with health for your struggle,

in proportion to your inward communion, you would have possessed the shooting stars through it.

You were humble in your success, until you shared what

was yours of the outcome's honor among the people.

Nor did you rest from Egypt's affairs before

your policy reached the heroes, her Arab neighbors.

May you have a hand to come to their aid,

as you have a heart to come to their aid.

For around them there is nothing but compassion for them,

while their homelands are lost and they are left as prey.

I lived on until what you attained was witnessed by

my life; it stretched for ages amid its glories.

And you are the leader enamored of glory in all its fullness,

and I remain your poet, enamored of goodness.

Your companions are the homeland's free men; you never see them

or witness them except as comrades in coming to its aid.