Sol 6.1

  1. Repeat my poetry, O events of time,

    and explain what I recounted, for it is momentous.

  2. And restore to sound judgment minds

    that lacked admonition and correction.

  3. I am the one who admonished the people, but they did not

    heed until the painful warning came.

  4. They distracted themselves from the decrees of fate until

    their inevitable judgment befell them.

  5. They went about the country in factions and

    parties; there the ignorant equaled the learned.

  6. What they had joined as brothers to seek became unattainable—

    the goal of its minister and the leader.

  7. What had once been Nasim's excuse

    now brings Nasim reproach.

  8. Rule has tested its people; each has

    his allotted share of its harm.

  9. The man whose habit was urging and

    incitement yesterday now makes a habit of lulling to sleep.

  10. Today mere safety satisfies the man who once

    said, 'Death rather than surrender.'

  11. His companions' banquets distracted him from his

    burdens, and honors turned his head.

  12. What yesterday, in his view, was

    permitted is today, in his view, forbidden.

  13. Where is what was received in the autumn,

    and what has the crisis-stricken man prepared?

  14. The former decree passed away with fate's onward

    flow, and no decree has followed it.

  15. And the secret appointed time has come down to the one

    in whose hands lie postponement and advancement.

  16. And indeed, back from afar has come the one whose

    departure and arrival are both hoped for and feared.

  17. The people lost the people's leaders before

    and after; without them, they are orphaned.

  18. And they abandoned what was sound in

    opinion, while corrupt, sick opinion gained currency there.

  19. What ails the community's newspapers today, plunging

    into hostilities among themselves and wandering astray?

  20. And you see the hostile writer protesting

    against the writer of passion and reproaching him.

  21. This one faulted that one's path, so each

    is hounded and condemned by his brother.

  22. Not for a principle, nor from conviction,

    did their voice clamor or their written page persist.

  23. And anyone who seeks accord and unity

    is, in their judgment, a sinner, branded sinful.

  24. They proclaimed all they had concealed; nothing

    remained obscure or hidden among them.

  25. From the harm of writers my country suffered

    what a subject suffers at a ruler's hands.

  26. They seek the pleasure of life with

    diseased pens, fitter to be shattered.

  27. And food procured through lying speech—

    zaqqum is fitter for the speaker than that.

  28. Woe to my people from a conqueror who claims

    benevolence and justice, though he is insolent and unjust.

  29. They wish him to be an ally, so that he may remain,

    while he dominates them as their overseer.

  30. Our passions divided us over him, and have turned

    into sorrows; yet sorrows have not restrained us.

  31. And tomorrow, amid earthquakes, the earth will

    collapse, and the stars will fall from the sky.

  32. And the plains will take flight, all aflame,

    and the winds will rage, a scorching blast.

  33. The cities are choked by the intruder who has

    settled there, and the frontiers surge with advancing troops.

  34. A new invader runs rampant around them,

    and an old invader tyrannizes within them.

  35. How can the approaching conqueror enter her broad spaces

    after the resident one has taken possession of her?

  36. And on which fields will the two predators fight—

    the hungry and the ravenous?

  37. And for whom will Sinai and al-Tur remain

    a passageway, and al-Sallum stand secure?

  38. And who will own the Canal and its two

    banks, and the ships' course wherever he desires?

  39. And are the forces filling the country a defense of it,

    or an assault against the country?

  40. It avails us nothing that, to some, we are

    friends, and to others enemies.

  41. We stand exposed: we make the victor bear the

    burdens of it, while the defeated takes revenge.

  42. In peace and war we see nothing except

    what the subjugated, deprived man sees.

  43. And if ever the land seeks refuge from a plunderer

    with another plunderer, the land is finished.

  44. And among the possibilities thereafter is that

    the Romans may succeed the English there.

  45. What does he seek from war, the man who

    kindles it, himself a destroyer and destroyed?

  46. Will he rule the people after killing them, or

    exploit the country while it is a hell?

  47. Is there anything in threats that he would fear,

    after arbitration has been wasted on him?

  48. So may he regain reason—the one who went mad for

    war without reckoning—and may the fevered man recover;

  49. and may those who apprehend him spare mankind calamities

    greater than the havoc Guillaume wrought.

Sol 6.1