I Shall Slay Despair

My hopes once plied, in life, the swell of a deep sea;
its waves flung them about—the waves of this vast, engulfing sea—
and they were shattered when they neared the shore of unhearing rock.

*

What shall I fend off, what guard against, while fate keeps hurling calamities?
What shall I fend off, now that it has begun to shoot arrow after arrow?

*

Tormented in my waking, alone, and in my sleep and in my dream—
alas! even in slumber I am tormented; why, then, should I sleep?
What ails me, that my misery has hedged me in to kill me every day?
I shall slay it with a mighty arm made of the hope of love.

*

O night—woe to you—do not exult, for my star may yet blaze within you.
I am a towering mountain that time has no power to pull down.
Woe to my adversary: I shall yet subdue every adversary.

College of Law, Baghdad