"The Remnant of a Dream...!"

"Alas, nothing remains but silence"
"Hamlet"

Who fashioned this light, when the world is darkness... on my road?
Revel... for this is a red night, drinking from my veins.
O dream — beg the blaze for its spittle out of the heat of my own;
those barefoot footsteps — how they have bloodied the visions of the deep night.

★

Press your lips... upon my lyre, though the song grow hoarse.
What have you found...? Nothing but wailing, stirred up by thankless pain.
This existence is a remnant, a youth — through me existence is made whole;
life dies away upon my lips... as melody... and immortality wakes it.

★

Leave not, of the flame of feeling... a living man's ashes... for autumn;
the tempests will scatter them across the horizons of my fearful soul.
My day? And what is my day...? I lost its longing in life's swift-passing span,
and my tomorrow is the end of a present... that did not die in the violent yesterday.

★

Mock... for before you everything is mocking, reckless:
the anguished poet... and the long night... lit by the moon,
the gliding brook... and the innocent, intoxicating melody.
Mock as you please... this universe around you is mocking too.

★

And I... I am the deprived one; no heart flutters... over my wounds.
I walk upon the crowns of the years, and I, across the plains —
conscience has dried up over my stupor... and bowed down behind the wailing.
In whom is consolation, now that all the dreams of morning have faded away?

★

What are you... what is this stillness peering out from the depths of my soul?
Dance upon the blaze of hell, for I could not bear the silence of grieving.
Revel... and the phantom of solace, should it rouse you, is nothing but my despair;
and let life melt into my spirit, and perish, filling my senses.

★

For whom is immortality...? when everything on earth laughs toward perdition.
Drink... for this cup clamors with tears and with blood.
And I shall go on... my feet bleeding, my cry fevered:
I never knew what the secret of life was, and I found no meaning in remaining.

Abd al-Basit al-Sufi
Homs