Sol 6.1

  1. Where are the words, that I might explain what ails me

    To you, O martyr of learning and letters?

  2. The day your death was announced, grief for you stunned me,

    Distracting me from every sorrow and every calamity.

  3. And stirred my ailing nerves after they

    Had quieted; my nervous ailment is burden enough.

  4. And I remembered you after news of your death, with tender concern,

    As one who loves remembers the best of loved ones.

  5. And I sent my whispered confidences to you, but you did not answer;

    And the bearer of death's news undertook to answer my letter.

  6. The terrors of your excuse impelled him, after

    My inmost thoughts had gone to you with my reproach.

  7. And he paid you your due in lamentation who had honored

    Your intellect with reverence and admiration.

  8. The leader gathered, in mourning you on the night of his ordeal,

    The grief of senators and deputies for you.

  9. The pain of his wound did not make him forget

    His grief for the most eloquent of writers.

  10. Egypt's calamities are many, and the harshest

    Is the loss she suffers among her gifted young men.

  11. Must I lose my loved ones in their prime,

    After losing my health and youth?

  12. And every day I am shaken by someone dear who departs,

    Never to return to me, and by a herald of departure.

  13. Their mounts pass on, and I possess

    Nothing but longing in the wake of every caravan.

  14. And I have marveled at fate, though I am

    Neither uncertain about it nor doubtful.

  15. The true striver is not the one who plunges into battle;

    The true striver is the one who opens minds.

  16. In the valley's keeping are your gifts, which

    Freed minds before necks were freed.

  17. And greater than one who adds to his country

    A kingdom is one who guides his people aright.

  18. And when a people advances toward its independence,

    Its vanguard is drawn from students.

  19. And the principles of a free man faithful to his pledge

    Outlast lineages and ancestral honors.

  20. And a person's dignity lies in good deeds, not

    In his wealth and the grandeur of titles.

  21. And I have explored the age, though I am

    Neither a wanderer in it nor a far-ranging traveler.

  22. And found every wide expanse within it cramped,

    So long as people's moral natures lack breadth.

  23. And I saw one group in the abasement of slaves,

    And another in the dignity afforded by resources.

  24. And I was appalled by a world whose people readied themselves

    For living by claws and fangs.

  25. And I grew weary of days whose wrongdoer passes freely

    And whose criminal escapes without a reckoning.

  26. Right is lost in them, unless

    Its possessor is master of keen swords and spears.

  27. No one is safe from aggression and harm in them

    Who does not deal repeated thrusts and blows.

  28. Humanity's ailments—long have I treated them,

    With selfless devotion, and returned burdened with afflictions.

  29. And I left life's arena in renunciation,

    And grew still, turning toward the prayer niche.

  30. The world has exhausted those greedy to possess it,

    Yet my milk-skins have contained all that is in the world.

  31. If I were granted a choice among events,

    I would choose my nation's ease and my own torment.

  32. I would give my life for her Nile's sources and its branches,

    Though I am ailing, and my drink comes from elsewhere.

  33. If they dam it in its channels, they cannot

    Imprison it, for it is the outpouring of clouds.

  34. I am a faction of one, a party unlike

    The factions and parties found in Egypt.

  35. I follow my conviction and hold it too high

    To placate a faction and show favoritism.

  36. I grew angry at a group of Egypt's heroes

    Who are not angry at her enemies.

  37. They rush to attain what is impossible for them,

    Even were they lions of the forest.

  38. Every day, someone makes my kinsfolk sink

    Into Egypt's earth, and someone hurls a meteor.

  39. And their faith is firmer than her pyramids

    In enduring fate's decrees and the ages.

  40. In Egypt's sister, for Egypt's sake, there are storms

    That have stirred the passions of neighbors and peers.

  41. They swept forth with the spirit and courage of the unbowed,

    Lofty, repelling the conqueror's might.

  42. Does he, after seeking friendship, turn

    Grim-faced toward paths that are difficult for him?

  43. And a policy of inducement is followed, before

    The day is over, by a policy of intimidation.

  44. And did the adversary's claims stand on proof, or

    Did they stand on his crocodile and eagle?

  45. The fleet cannot cross a desert, even if

    Its stays at the gates are prolonged.

  46. O departed one, who left life while immortalizing

    His works for the people and posterity.

  47. Fate robbed the people of your life, while

    They were reclaiming precious spoils.

  48. And you left your spirit wandering through the pages,

    And rested beneath monuments and domes.

  49. In the homeland, yours is remembrance that suffices

    You in place of recompense and generous reward.

  50. A remembrance that restores you to it, visibly present;

    And that suffices as a return and a fine homecoming.

  51. Everyone stretches toward glory the cords that lead to it,

    And writers have the greatest claim to those cords.

Sol 6.1