Sol 6.1

  1. Your auspicious accession is an excellent safeguard

    for the East, a safeguard secure and trusted.

  2. On a day like this, a proof stood forth,

    and a clear demonstration for Egypt stirred.

  3. It was indeed the appointed time of hopes, honored

    by a destiny that reveres and guards its promises.

  4. And it granted the secure land a crowned ruler,

    through whom the world grew fair and faith triumphed.

  5. The anniversary of your accession brings joy to your subjects,

    and strength to Egypt's crown and throne.

  6. These letters and delegations bear witness

    that loyalty is a creed and a certainty.

  7. Thus its words follow its conviction,

    and its new forms are joined to its old.

  8. On your festival, the worshippers prayed in supplication,

    seeking peace, a precious thing.

  9. Egypt was safe from war's afflictions, though war

    was nearer to her, while China burned in it.

  10. What she welcomed from her days was—

    and God will please her with what is to come—

  11. the grace of him under whom a fighter rested,

    an exile escaped, and a captive found security.

  12. And through him a world found solace for what it endured,

    where ordeals arose and groaning lingered long.

  13. People and iron shall perish tomorrow, yet

    human aggressions, in their many forms, do not perish.

  14. They fight one another over vanishing wreckage,

    and often one close friend kills another.

  15. Ah, pity for the young men of kingdoms,

    with whom battlefields and years ebbed away.

  16. They were the hopes of their families and homelands,

    but death overtook them before their destined death.

  17. How long shall stars be gathered into graves,

    while today boughs sip poison?

  18. And how long must a radiant world be burned,

    and how long must a laden vessel sink?

  19. And how long shall a destroyer crave a horror

    from which minds and eyes recoil?

  20. The spilled blood ebbed, until, from

    terror, the unspilled blood almost raced ahead of it.

  21. And fiercer than battle's fire and iron

    are grief for its martyrs and sorrows upon sorrows.

  22. If the inhabited world could, it would not

    bear humankind, this inhabited world,

  23. content with rock, which is not stirred

    to evil by whisperings and suspicions.

  24. Ignorance did not wreak what knowledge wreaked—knowledge that

    overstepped its bounds and returned as madness.

  25. A sin the earth's inhabitants committed against it,

    so generations and centuries stagger beneath its weight.

  26. They came to this: among what they devised from its fire

    was a whale, and from its steel a falcon.

  27. And its fruits gave way to things hurled and

    set ablaze, sharpened and whetted.

  28. If laws and reason were sufficient for justice,

    it would have no need of battalions and fortresses.

  29. Woe to a people from whom a sharp sword exacted

    what the law could not exact from them.

  30. Fitter for him who devoured entrails in life, and him who

    drank blood, are Zaqqum and ghislin.

  31. Who better merits mighty strength than one

    through whom the oppressed and cheated grow strong?

  32. The powerless hopes its outcome will bring what

    the oppressor, bewitched by his own might, fears.

  33. Conquest cannot gladden a crowned ruler

    when the dispossessed and wounded weep around him.

  34. And deposition befits the tyrannical king more than

    a reign that tarnishes and disgraces his conquests.

  35. And worthier of the great army and its victory

    than its warlike surge are security and civilization.

  36. I warned of fierce, recurring war, and there appeared to me

    the hidden secret of every people.

  37. And now I dream of a right hand, extended

    for peace by a right hand from behind the curtain.

  38. One side draws near the other, and equality prevails

    in every claim between creditor and debtor.

  39. And may the one who aided crime and harm

    become a helper in deeds of kindness.

  40. A peace for all time, not a truce

    in which the weakened one renews his violence.

  41. A peace that reconciles the peoples of the earth, not

    a peace that humiliates and degrades the weak.

  42. Each would welcome peace, were it not for his fear

    that peace is a stratagem and an ambush.

  43. From the New World its peerless man called out,

    its president and sage, Wilson.

  44. He hopes for what Jesus attained through gentleness,

    Moses through might, and Qarun through wealth.

  45. He sets restraints on every crowned ruler, so no

    traitor transgresses the covenant of brotherhood.

  46. The Day of Judgment has come for every kingdom, and

    after Judgment, creation returns.

  47. And this creation becomes a good creation once more,

    with reform and improvement in its nature.

  48. They care for and show mercy to one another, so no

    vengeance or buried rancor remains there.

  49. In your keeping, O Fuad, kingship has matters

    of great moment, as you wish for it, and affairs.

  50. Every day of your time brings a festival

    for the devoted, delighting and adorning them.

  51. And if you wish, Egypt is a leafy grove;

    and if you wish, Egypt is a lion's den.

  52. The year approaches, radiant of face,

    with myrtle and wild roses before it.

  53. The land rejoiced at its glad tidings, and was stirred

    by longing for its hopes and yearning.

  54. It brings peace to humankind; fair are

    its days, and every matter has its time.

Sol 6.1