أيها الشعب ليتني كنت حطابا

O people, I wish I were a woodcutter, to bring my axe crashing down upon the trunks.

I wish I were like floods when they rush forth, tearing up graves, one tomb after another.

I wish I were like the winds, sweeping away everything that chokes the flowers with my blight.

I wish I were like winter, blanketing everything that autumn withered with my freezing chill.

I wish I had the power of storms, my people, so I could hurl the fury of my soul right at you.

I wish I had the might of raging hurricanes, so I could summon you to life with my breath.

I wish I possessed hurricane force, but you are alive while spending your life inside a grave.

You are a dull spirit that hates the light, spending the centuries in a slick, dark night.

You fail to grasp truths when they hover all around you without a touch or a knock.

In the morning of life, I perfumed my goblets and filled them to the brim with the wine of my soul.

Then I offered them to you, but you spilled my nectar and trampled my cup, O people.

I suffered, then forced my tongue to be silent, and reined in my feelings and my senses.

Then I arranged a bouquet from the blossoms of my heart, untouched by any human hand.

Then I offered it to you, but you tore my roses apart and trampled them mercilessly.

Then you clothed me in a garment of sorrow, and crowned my head with mountain thorns.

I am going away to the woods, my people, to live out my life alone in despair.

I am going to the woods, hoping that deep within the forests I might bury my misery.

Then I will forget you as best I can, for you are unworthy of my wine and my cup.

I will chant my songs to the birds and confide the yearnings of my soul to them.

For they know the meaning of life, and they know that the glory of souls is an awakened sense.

Then I will pass away there in the darkness of night, casting my despair upon existence.

Then beneath the sweet, vibrant pine trees, the floods will carve out the hollow of my grave.

The birds will chatter on top of my tomb, and the breeze will murmur gently above me.

The seasons will keep moving around me, just as they did in the freshness of my yesterday.

O people, you are a little child playing in the dirt while the night grows dark.

You are a power in the universe, if only a brilliant, mighty intellect were to guide you.

You are a force in the cosmos that has been shackled by the darkness of ages from time immemorial.

The most wretched of the wretched is he who is like me in my sensitivity and the delicacy of my soul.

So spoke a poet who handed people the nectar of life in the finest of cups.

Yet they turned away from it, passed by in anger, dismissed him lightly, and spoke in despair.

He has lost his way in the playground of the jinn, how wretched of him, he has been touched by madness.

He constantly appeals to emotions in the night and communes with the dead of every kind.

He perpetually accompanies the darkness into the woods and calls upon spirits of every sort.

He endlessly converses with the demons in the valley and sings with the winds in a resonant tone.

He is a wizard whom the demons teach their sorcery at every break of dawn.

So drive the ungodly, wicked outcast away from the temple, for the wicked man is a source of defilement.

Drive him away and do not listen to him, for he is an evil spirit marked by misfortune.

So spoke a philosophical poet who lived in wretchedness among his foolish people.

People remained ignorant of his soul and its songs, treating his feelings with cheap contempt.

Thus, in the way of life, he is a prophet, while among his own people he is regarded as mad.

Thus he spoke, then set off toward the woods to live a life of poetry and sanctity.

Far away there in the sanctuary of the forest, which is sheltered from any touch of misery.

In the shade of sweet pine trees and olives, he spends his life watch by steady watch.

In the beautiful morning he sings with the birds and walks in the rapturous intoxication of the sensitive soul.

Blowing his flute as spring blossoms tremble all around him from every branch.

His loose hair is teased by the wind over his shoulders like fine silk.

Joyful birds sing all around him, chattering in the leafy thicket from every species.

You see him at dusk by the stream, gazing at the drinking bird.

Or singing among the pine trees, or watching the approach of the evening dusk.

When darkness falls and the dark shadows of existence grow dim across the earth.

He would dwell inside his lovely hut, questioning the universe in hushed reverence.

About where life's currents pour and where the core of existence finally comes to rest.

About the fragrance of roses in every valley and the song of birds at evening.

About the roaring wind in every mountain pass and the patterns of life echoing from antiquity.

And where the silence of space swallows up the songs of shepherds as evening falls.

Thus he passes his life and wears away the rings of the passing years, watch by watch.

What a wondrous existence in the heart of the forest, spending mornings and nights among the birds.

What a wondrous existence, unpolluted by the malice and corruption of mortal souls.

What a wondrous existence in the cosmos—a singular life imbued with sacred holiness.