The watchman cannot from his hill desery
The countless army of the enemy,
And hath not wit to turn away although
Their spears confront the lashes of his eye.
The runners too that were so fleet of yore
Bend and are bound by pitiless threescore;
The singer is aweary of his song,
And one are bulbul's note and lion's roar.
Since I took up the cup of fifty-eight,
The grave and shroud, naught else, I contemplate.
Ah! for my swordlike speech when I was thirty,
Those luscious days, musk-scented, roseate!
Drawn by pomegranate-bloom and cypress-bough
The pheasant haunteth not the dog-rose now.
Sufficient respite from my destiny
I ask the Judge Almighty to allow
That from the famous talo of days gone by
I may bequeath the world a history
Such that whoe'er shall judge my work aright
Shall never speak of me but lovingly;
And I that am the Prophet's household-thrall
In dust before his Mandatary fall—
Him of the pulpit and of Zú'lfakar*—
On him to plead my cause above I call.
The story of the rustic bard again
I take in hand; heed thou the minstrel's strain.