On the Tomb of Sayid - Abd Almalec Alharithy

Lest are the tenants of the tomb!

With envy I their lot survey;

For SAYID shares the solemn gloom,

And mingles with their mouldering clay.

 

Dear youth! I'm doom'd thy loss to mourn

When gathering ills around combine;

And whither now shall MALEC turn,

Where look for any help but thine?

 

At this dread moment when the foe

My life with rage insatiate seeks,

In vain I strive to ward the blow,

My buckler falls, my sabre breaks.

 

Upon thy grassy tomb I knelt,

And sought from pain a short relief--

Th' attempt was vain -- I only felt

Intenser pangs and livelier grief.

 

The bud of woe no more represt,

Fed by the tears that drench'd it there,

Shot forth and fill'd my labouring breast

Ready to blossom in despair.

 

But tho' of SAYID I'm bereft,

From whom the stream of bounty came,

SAYID a nobler meed has left--

Th' exhaustless heritage of fame.

 

Tho' mute the lips on which I hung,

Their silence speaks more loud to me

Than any voice from mortal tongue,

"What SAYID was let MALEC be."

---

Abd Almalec Alharithy (c. 5th century) Yemen

Translated by J.D. Carlyle

Source: Specimens of Arabian Poetry, From the Earliest Time to the Extinction of the Khaliphat. Trans. J.D. Carlyle. John Burges, 1796.