Sol 6.1

  1. A fortunate departure with the conquerors' resolve,

    and a praiseworthy return with the victors' glory.

  2. You appeared over the fertile valley, before which

    were processions of its hopes and delegations.

  3. And you journeyed to Sudan, tending its plantings,

    and return with wholesome fruits.

  4. Air and land vied eagerly for you,

    so descent and ascent in them were a delight.

  5. And the faithful Nile followed you, and beckoning

    to you were bridges and dams above it.

  6. And the two banks extended their hills toward you,

    and Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt on them greeted you.

  7. You tended it, making its people's welfare complete,

    and a loving friend visited noble friends.

  8. So the people's faces brightened with joy

    at what you hope for them and desire.

  9. On every highland, a festival marks your morning journey,

    and on every plain, a feast marks your evening journey.

  10. Even had you not come to them as the caravan's bird, there would have bowed

    mountains toward you, and deserts would have folded themselves for you.

  11. You carried to them bounty from the King's hand,

    and approached the farthest reach of the realm, vast as it is.

  12. And your tour among them showed him what had sped

    to him by telegraph and traveled by courier.

  13. And today every tribe nearly became once more

    a realm of his, through what he builds for Egypt.

  14. And his sovereignty in their lands was made complete,

    as his fathers and forefathers had wished.

  15. Bonds of brotherhood and ties of neighborliness

    restored the ancient covenant, fresh once more.

  16. For they send the water, a blessed flood,

    and we are indeed its guardians and those who come to drink.

  17. You united the valley's sons around what strengthened it,

    and white and black people admired what you had done.

  18. And your private counsel brought the parties to you, and they came together,

    with nothing between them but pledges to Egypt.

  19. So every faction supports the other,

    and each leader is his fellow leader's peer.

  20. Nor did you advance your counsel until you had reinforced it

    with your might in the field, formidable as it is.

  21. For every place has a fortress and a stronghold,

    and in every pass are commanders and soldiers.

  22. You stood firm in your impregnable valley, while around it

    diverse kingdoms writhed and swayed.

  23. All people became equal amid their crises,

    for in dire straits there are neither masters nor slaves.

  24. If a cheering promise comes in the night,

    a threat comes in the morning from a herald of warning.

  25. And if the sun rises over the world for an hour,

    lightning flashes and thunderclaps follow it for an hour.

  26. On earth, obedience is given only to the worst of what

    fire and iron have decreed among them.

  27. They turned against one another, not knowing whether they fought on earth

    to colonize, or fought to annihilate.

  28. I never knew that the children of Adam

    are vultures and whales, and lions.

  29. And man, though cultured, has become

    more harmful than the Devil, rebellious as he is.

  30. And I fear war throughout the whole earth,

    so it would be named, though the world's peoples would be no more.

  31. And whoever deliberately kindles fires in the neighborhood

    has indeed become fuel for the fires himself.

  32. Nor was the earth laid out for cruel punishment and slaughter,

    but for a life of ease.

  33. Nor did God create the air with barriers before it—

    conditions on breathing it, and restrictions.

  34. Nor did the Creator spread out a people's sustenance

    for an obstinate tyrant to assail them.

  35. No people has achieved supremacy through warfare and harm,

    but through good deeds it achieves supremacy.

  36. And the covenants of nations are sources of benefit;

    they are not mere documents folded away and contracts.

  37. And had they gone gently upon the earth, it would have

    stretched its edges out for them and grown wider.

  38. And had they been secure from enmity between them on it,

    the frontiers and boundaries between them would have vanished.

  39. And where can civilization find Hud and Salih,

    when ʿAd and Thamud wreak havoc upon it?

  40. So will the fates be just, or am I a dreamer,

    and those but vanished hopes and promises?

  41. So, O man of the hour, from whose conscience

    Egypt has a judge and witness over you:

  42. Your ally is the one you have treated as an equal, and both of you

    benefit from what you both concluded, and confer benefit.

  43. And through what you have planned along its course,

    you are a ready watcher over what lies unseen.

  44. And enough for you from Farouk is that, in his eyes,

    you do good and excel in every deed.

  45. Governance is only a people's burden that you have shouldered,

    and what rests on a firm foundation is firm.

  46. Nor do you glory in it today among them,

    while you give your very self for them in its service.

  47. And whoever has secured his ultimate outcome from time

    finds the near and the distant equal.

  48. And I am indeed a helper of reformers; I honor them

    with my poetry throughout the cities—immortality itself.

Sol 6.1