سلام صاحب الوادي ومجد — أحمد الكاشف

Peace, lord of the Valley, and glory

To your festival, a covenant and a pledge;

And honor for the day on which it passed

To you—rule, a source of guidance and sound judgment;

And a promise of the best the land foresees

From destiny, and of what it reckons on;

And a remembrance by which, each year,

Affection for you increases and is renewed.

The decorations filling the kingdom are nothing but

Your joyful people's innermost feelings made visible.

And these processions at the festival are nothing but

Praise and thanks for the good you have done.

The port welcomed the arrivals with open arms,

And they gathered there as pilgrims gather at the Hajj.

Your cavalcade graciously honored the square,

Its route filled with myrtle and roses.

And what your men staged pleased you,

For this festival, and what they prepared:

In loyalty to the throne, a blessing,

And to safeguard Egypt, the Quiver, everlasting;

And to hold your person above reproach, for it is sacred,

And in devotion to your age, an age of ease.

You became king and shielded Egypt from a calamity

That lays waste to whatever kingdoms it lays waste to;

And won a truce bearing a reckoning

Harsher than the war that was fought.

And it wished for itself a share in life—

Your free, industrious people, at your command.

It had earlier paved the way by force, out of necessity,

For what it would later attain through peace;

And through you it reached a goal never reached

For anyone other than you before by a fleet or an army.

You united the East therein, and so

India felt secure with you, and Najd sought your guardianship.

And Egypt became once more, for every science

And every civilization on earth, a cradle.

Does Egypt complain of hardship, when within it

Is your bounty, a rival to the two Niles?

And does it fear its adversary, when each day

Greetings and goodwill come to you from him,

And a covenant borne by an envoy

Going evening and morning with all that pleases you?

You chose those who are a guarantee

For your aim, an aim directed toward destinies.

And entrusted the ministry to each man faithful

To what he receives and draws from you.

Were it not a duty incumbent upon them,

They would be independent of it and indifferent to it.

And the nights are healed through your good health,

And the strain on the land and on you has eased.

You rose with true intent and resolve,

Strengthening what a father and a grandfather built.

And you protect the sanctity of the constitution from those

Who rebel against its dignity and transgress.

And nowhere on earth do ratifying and revoking

Belong to a suspect, nor loosening and binding.

And within it no group rules badly,

And within it no individual rules badly.

Sound judgment may make consultation needless—

Something the autocratic counselor lacks.

So what ails the angry ones, when they were summoned

To you by the warners, yet did not respond?

And they feared you would replace some matters for them

With others, which is unavoidable.

How often they filled the protected domain with lightning and thunder,

Yet neither lightning nor thunder availed them.

No claim of theirs held good in the West,

And no promise came true for them in the East.

They diverted the cause, so it turned

Toward a market they prolonged and extended.

Their envoy bore it in hypocrisy,

And cast it upon them as hatred.

He brought it near, but nearness did him no good;

And put it far away, but distance did him no good.

His reception by them had been a greeting of peace,

But it became avoidance and rebuff.

Is the deluded man called to freedom

And relied upon, while he is a slave to passions?

So if they fall silent from shame or exhaustion,

That is acknowledgment that the matter is serious.

Perhaps they are worthy of the festival's pardon;

So may they seek your favor and regain it.

And may you forgive what they committed in error and deliberately,

So no error or deliberate wrongdoing remains against them.