Very Moving poem

[Sophist]

1 You have died, Corfiedl, and are no longer in this world,

2 A merciless journey was your portion.

3 When Hell-destined, you set out for the Other World

4 Those who have gone to Heaven will question you, if God is willing;

5 When you see the companions of the faithful and the jewels of Heaven

6 Answer them how God tried you,

7 Say to them: ‘From that day to this the Dervishes never ceases their assault upon us,

8 The British were broken, the noise of battle engulfed us.

10 Say: ‘They attacked us at mid-morning

11 Say: Yesterday in the holy war a bullet from one of their old rifles struck me.

12 And the bullet struck me in the arm.

13 Say: ‘In fury, they fell upon us.’

14 Report how savagely their swords tore you,

15 Show these past generations in how many places the daggers were plunged.

16 Say: “Friend,” I called, “have compassion and spare me!”

17 Say: ‘As I looked fearfully from side to side my heart was plucked from its sheath.’

18 Say: “My eyes stiffened as I watched with horror’

19 The mercy I implored was not granted

20 Say: ‘Striking with spear-butts at my mouth they silenced my soft words;

21 My ears, straining for deliverance, found nothing;

22 The risk I took, the mistake I made, cost my life;

23 Say: ‘The schemes that djinns (devil) planted in me brought my ruin;

24 Say: ‘When pain racked me everywhere

25 Men lay sleepless at my shrieks

27 Say: ‘Great shouts acclaimed the departing of my soul.’

28 Say: ‘Beasts of prey have eaten my flesh and torn it apart for meat.’

29 Say: ‘The sound of swallowing the flesh and the fat comes from the hyena.’

30 Say: ‘The crows plucked out my veins and tendons.’

31 Say: ‘If stubborn denials are to be abandons, then my clansmen were defeated.’

32 In the last stand of resistance there is always great slaughter.

33 Say: ‘The Dervishes are like the advancing thunderbolts of a storm, rumbling and roaring.’

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Sayid Mohamed Abdule Hassan