This Mortal World, Whose gifts to men...(top poem)

[Ibn Al-Jarrah]

This mortal world, whose gifts to men
Are loans demanded back again,
A life of ease has lent to thee
Whose green fades all too suddenly;
And shall the prudent man aspire
To such brief comfort, or desire
A life so quickly out of breath,
So surely visited by death?
How can the contemplative eye,
Long tutored to take warning by
The passing show, one-hour delight
To sleep, and shut it out of sight?
How can the soul be pleased so well
In this so transient world to dwell,
When it is sure and satisfied
It shall not ever here abide?
Can it a moment's thought bestow
Upon this fleeting earth below,
Not knowing, when it comes to die,
In what last lodging it shall lie?
What, is it not sufficient care
To labour for salvation there,
And to be anxiously intent
To flee eternal chastisement?
For many spirits, led astray
By a brief hour of trifling play,
Have stumbled in that furnace dire
Of unextinguishable fire
The cameleer with urgent song
Sped them enticingly along
To bring them home, at journeys end,
Whither they never thought to wend.
There is a purpose for the soul,
But it pursues another goal,
A journey to a blest abode,
But it prefers a different road.
What, hastens it along a way
That on the resurrection day
Shall bring it ruin, though it knows
Its target is eternal woes?
It spurns the feast to it assigned,
Content its wretched scrap to find,
Condemned to misery immense
By pride and disobedience.
It is complacent to remain
In what shall prove its direst pain,
And flees in horror from the thing
That would its sweetest triumph bring;
Turning its back upon the Lord,
Who calls to virtue and reward,
It takes this world to be its friend,
To be deserted in the end.


Then, O deluded one, relent
Thy folly! With all speed repent
God has prepared a place of ire
Whose awful flames shall ne'er expire.
Choose not the joy that mortal is
In lieu of everlasting bliss
The choice of pleasures men elect
Proves well their power of intellect.
Knowest thou, truth is found the best
In what thou most abandonest,
And that the path that is thy aim
Abounds in base and secret shame?
Leaving the white and shining way
As if resolved to go astray,
Thou stridest on that path of gloom
Where stumbling brings to certain doom.
On foolish sports thy heart is set
That have no issue but regret,
Amusements over soon, for sure,
Whose consequences aye endure.
For pleasures all are quickly done,
Joys ended almost ere begun,
But folly's wages, sin's disgrace
Outreach the bounds of time and space.
But thou, poor silly dupe, art thou
In truth awake? Already now
The secrets of those dire events
Stand forth revealed, God's evidence.
Rise up betimes, and hasten to
The pleasure of thy Lord: eschew
The things He has forbidden thee,
Whose warning light shines brilliantly.
Thou art a counter in Time's play
That flings thee carelessly away;
The world allures thee with her guile,
But there is malice in her smile.
How many peoples, long ere we
Were born to trouble, Destiny
Deceived, for us in turn to stare
Upon their dwellings empty, bare!


Remember them, and ponder o'er
The things that were, and are no more;
For pondering; as thou wilt find,
Is a fine sharpener of the mind.
Adventurer and tyrant vied
To scale those summits fortified
Possessing which, as men suppose,
Secures a monarch from his foes;
But now their heights are overthrown,
Their battlements in ruin strewn,
And that they had on loan at last
Again to its true owner passed.
Many have slumbered all t heir days
Unwary of the fate that slays,
Unheeding Destiny, loin-girt
And ready to their instant hurt.
And many, terrible and strong,
Have lifted up their hands to wrong,
Too arrogant to be aware
God would avenge their victims' prayer.
I see thee eager to pursue
The would, that thou aspirest to
Although thou seest clear as day
Too languid to obey His will
Who would forgive thee all they ill,
To dilatory to produce
An even passable excuse;
I see thee anxious and afraid
Of sorrows that shall swiftly fade,
Oblivious to that great care
It is thy duty to beware.
Methinks I see thee, in the hour
The fates in their majestic power
Strike, as they must, thy heart imbued
With impotent disquietude,
When men lament, "Ah, who will give
Me back again those years to live,
Those precious moments to dispose
As once, precisely as I chose?"


Bethink thee of that day of fear
Whose shadow draws already near,
That dreadful day thy soul shall be
Assailed by its last agony;
Deserted and disowned by those
Whose friendship was thy heart's repose,
Thou watchest all thy edifice
Of hopes crash down to the abyss;
Thy bones shall be deposited
In the dark quarters of the dead,
A narrow and a dusty room
To those who see thee to thy tomb.
Then thou shalt hear a voice proclaim,
But wilt not know who calls thy name,
And see in that deserted place
The veil is lifted from life's face;
Thou shalt be summoned to a day
Of, awful terror and dismay,
That famous hour of mustering
When all shall rise to meet their King.
Then every beast from den and lair
Shall spring, to be assembled there;
And all the pages of our sin
About our heads shall whirl and spin;
And Paradise shall be displayed
In fair and intimate parade,
The raging fires of Hell below
Be stoked to an intenser glow.
The sun, that fills the noon with light,
Shall darken, as if wrapped in night;
The stars, so radiant on high,
Shall scatter swiftly from the sky,
And as by heavenly command
Arrayed in order due they stand,
So at the word celestial
In wide dispersion they shall fall.
And then shall every mountain range
Be shaken, and earth's contours change;
The dromedaries great with child
Shall roam deserted through the wild.


Then every man shall be endued
With infinite beatitude,
Or to imprisonment assigned
Whose chains are never to unbind.
Before a mighty, gracious Lord
Just in reprisal and reward
The trespasses of men shall all
Be reckoned up, both great and small;
And those who were of small offence
Shall save themselves by penitence,
And those whose sins were great shall be
Condemned to all eternity.
What joy their bodies shall obtain
Whose souls are brought to life again,
When secret thought, put to the test,
Proves one with action manifest!
Encompassed in that dreadful place
By God's forgiveness and His grace
They shall be made at last to dwell
Where wine is lawful, and all well;
Which happiness licentious men
Shall win in equal measure, when
The donkey and the noble horse
Are judged joint winners in the course.
The world lings all shall flee away
With their loved world in dire dismay,
Whose transient pleasures seemed so true,
Reserved to the so favoured few.
The world's a mother, whom her son
Best honours, strickliest to shun,
And whom to save from mortal hurt
Is most devoutly to desert;
None wins abiding pleasure there
Except that he despises her,
And they who cultivate her charms
Go down to ruin in her arms.
Suitor to suitor doth succeed
Pursuing her with breathless greed,
Though to the wise experiment
Has proved long since her ill intent.


Live tranquil, and untroubled be
By fortune's fluctuating sea;
Plunge not into the tumbling wave
That waits to suck thee to thy grave.
Be not deceived or led astray
By luck's illusory display;
The touchstone of unclouded wit
Reveals the falsity of it.
I have observed how worldly kings
Desired the pomp that power brings,
Those pleasures of the appetite
Whose tasting is such sweet delight;
They wandered far from rectitude
To grasp the glitter they pursued,
As with her trail of lambs the ewe
Will quest for pastures ever new;
Yet all their struggle and their strife
Was to attain a span of life
Which those who for salvation make
Do find most easy to forsake.
For what is glory, but to keep
The honour from ambition's steep,
And what is honour, but the will
To stifle every thought of ill?
And who shall final profit find
Except the man with heart resigned,
Rich in contentment of the soul,
Majestic in his self-control?
But those promoted to great power
In fear and trepidation cower,
Unequal to support the cares
That by high privilege are theirs.
All this we plainly see; and yet
Are by such drunkenness beset
That, with the fumes of folly blind,
We cannot grasp the truth to mind.
Reflect on Him Who o'er the earth
Raised up yon roof of massive girth,
Within Whose knowledge are embraced
The fertile field, the arid waste;


Who holds the stars in His wide hand,
And earth, obeying His command,
Without foundations keeps her place
In the vast firmament of space.
He did determine and devise
According to His purpose wise
This ordered world, wherever new
Night follows day in sequence due.
He loosed the flooding waters, so
That over all the land they flow,
Providing nourishment to root
Of swelling grain and shining fruit.
He fashioned all the hues revealed
By all the lilies of the field,
The gold that in the tulip glows,
The crimson glory of the rose,
The ferns so delicately green
That hold enchantment in their sheen,
The jacarandas that amaze
The vision with their fiery blaze.
He channeled out with utmost ease
The rivers running to the seas,
So that the fountains' sudden shock
Split through the hard and granite rock.
Who gave the sun its ball of light
That in the morning shineth white,
But when the day is nigh to close
In golden emanation glows?
Who made the spinning spheres to run
On their far orbits, every one
So firmly on its axis set
That all rotate serenely yet?
And when calamities do vex
And try the wisest intellects,
What living thing but He is there
To whom the needy may repair?
Each creature, as thou canst discern,
To its Creator doth return,
Whose sovereign, eternal sway
All things submissively obey.


And through His prophets He has shown
His wondrous signs, which they have known,
Who formerly were powerless,
To master in new blessedness.
He opened mouths that they might preach
The wisdom He would have them teach,
In toothless infancy as sage
As uninhibited by age.
Out of the stony rock hewed He
A camel, shaped so cunningly
That with no instant of delay
Its bellow echoed far away,
That many through that miracle
Might win to faith; some, infidel,
Led by the sin Qudar there wrought,
Were unto dire perdition brought.
He likewise clove the mighty seas
For Moses with amazing ease,
So that the waves before his rod
Rolled back, to prove the power of God,
And Abram, whom He called His friend,
He rescued from the fiery end
That Nimrod plotted, and the flame
Was impotent his flesh to maim.
And He delivered from the Flood
His servant Noah, of whose blood
A righteous progeny was spared
The ruin all those sinners shared.
And David, and his son beside,
With mighty gifts He fortified,
According them, as He might please,
In all their difficulties ease;
The mighty tyrant of the land
Bowed to King Solomon's command,
And he was taught the airy speech
Of birds, and how each calls to each.
But on Mohammed's people He
Bestowed, His greatest grace to be,
The Holy Book, and power to ride
Through all the countries far and wide;


He clove for him the shining moon
In heaven, and for special boon
Revealed to him those verses true
Whose strength no shaking can undo;
Its sacred truth delivered us
When unbelief most ruinous
Possessed our minds, and every man
Upon the pole of ruin span.
Alas for us! Then why do we
Forsake not our stupidity,
To save our souls from that dread fire
Whose leaping sparks draw ever nigher?

by shaikh spear
:D Source (http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/hazm/dove/chp29.html)