Christmas Eve

Listen, O soul! Is there singing anywhere in the world?
And look!... Is there light in the corners of the earth by night?
Be not alarmed if the poets have fallen short of you,
for the bells that greeted you — fate has made them most mournful;
grief is the echo they return, grief and sorrow and anguish,
and the chants from the church are lamentation and weeping,
echoed by bereaved mothers and the orphans of the martyrs;
and the lamps in which the evening once gloried —
the fist of evil has strangled them; no last breath is left in them;
it has dyed them black, so that they and the night are one.
O Sent One — may heaven not begrudge your return —
look upon the earth... is there upon the earth love and brotherhood?
The people have forgotten your commandments; they have strayed and done evil!
And as they sold you, O Redeemer, the innocent are sold.

Christmas Eve — and the world is tears and blood
in lands where once you had the flourishing pride of peace,
in whose name the blessed sing, and the poets sing.
Where has this joy fled? Or where is the old serenity?
No radiant dreams of children have come to greet you;
they have slept — all but eyes startled by the empty space,
watching for the fathers: have they returned? Has the meeting come?
In the arms of mothers who passed the night, while the night was estrangement,
weeping in the folds of the soul, hope grown scarce.
O Strong One, to whom the weak were never cheap,
and Weak One, at whose very name the strong take fright —
and I, the Muslim: with me the prophets are not denied;
you are, in the Quran, love and beauty and purity.
A wonder! I would ransom you, most exalted one — and in the saying is solace!
Was it for this wicked world?... The redemption has been lost!