For the Fallen at Gallipoli

Soldier, you who have fallen for this earth Your fathers may well lean down from heaven to kiss your brow. You are great, for you blood saves the True Faith Only the heroes of Bedr are your equals in glory. Who can dig a grave that will not be too narrow for you? If I say: ‘Let us enshrine you in history,’ it will not contain you That book cannot hold your time of troubles Only eternity can embrace you If I were to set up the Ka’be as your headstone If I could seize the revelation in my soul and write it as epitaph If I could take the firmament with all its stars And lay it as pall over your bloody coffin And make a ceiling of purple clouds for your open tomb And hang the seven lamps of the Pleiades If, as you lie swathed in blood under this chandelier I could detain the moonlight by your side To stay till dawn as guardian of your tomb If I could charge your chandelier with morning light And wrap the silken sunset over your wounds - Still I could not say: ‘I have done something for your memory …’

Translated by Bernard Lewis