"The Wisdom of Life," by Al-Akhtal al-Saghir

Life's wisdom is best found in living drunk;
Pass me then my winecups and my lute.

Strip the world down to its delicious beauty
As you would unveil a virgin bride.

We are all in love with Life and aspire
To reap its unsoiled pleasures.

Grab on to life then, damn you,
And throw away the mask your face has hardened into.

However long you live, you're but a bird,
Tree-bound one moment, soaring high the next.

Ecclesiastes 12

Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth,
before the difficult days come,
and the years draw near when you say,
"I have no pleasure in them":
while the sun and the light
the moon and the stars
are not darkened,
and the clouds do not return after the rain;
in the day when the keepers of the house tremble,
and the strong men bow down;
when the grinder cease because they are few,
and those that look through the windows grow dim;
when the doors are shut in the streets,
and the sound of grinding is low;
when one rises up at the sound of a bird,
and all the daughters of music are brought low.
Also they that are afraid of height,
and of terrors in the way;
when the almond tree blossoms,
the grasshopper is a burden,
and desire fails.
For man goes to his eternal home,
and the mourners go about the streets.

Remember your Creator
before the silver cord is loosed,
or the golden bowl is broken,
or the pitcher shattered at the fountain,
or the wheel broken at the well.
Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

"Vanity of vanities," says the preacher,
"All is vanity."

And moreover, because the preacher was wise
he still taught the people knowledge;
yes, he pondered and sought out
and set in order many proverbs.
The preacher sought to find acceptable words;
and what was written was upright-- words of truth.

The words of the wise are like goads,
and the words of scholars are like well-driven nails,
given by one Shepherd.
And further, my son, be admonished by these.
Of making many books there is no end,
and much study is wearisome to the flesh.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man's all.
For God will bring every work into judgement,
including every secret thing,
whether good or evil.

Finally

turn on all the lights in the house!
my mother embraces me
and my sister is laughing,
dad removes his glasses in disbelief.
I've been accepted into medical school,
there is a celebration to be had.

Arthur Rimbaud's summary of a poet

A poet makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized disorganization of all the senses. All forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he exhausts within himself all poisons, and preserves their quintessences. Unspeakable torment, where he will need the greatest faith, a superhuman strength, where he becomes all men: the great invalid, the great criminal, the great accursed—and the Supreme Scientist! For he attains the unknown! Because he has cultivated his soul, already rich, more than anyone! He attains the unknown, and, if demented, he finally loses the understanding of his visions, he will at least have seen them! So what if he is destroyed in his ecstatic flight through things unheard of, unnameable: other horrible workers will come; they will begin at the horizons where the first one has fallen!

"Poet," by 'Ali Ja'far al-'Allaq

Who among you has begun his days
seeking out the color of the dew and stones,
searching and searching
for themes that have neither been profaned
no sung to satiety?

Whenever he felt
that the stallions he pursued were too elusive
that the songs he tried to work were too abstruse,
he would cast his vexed eyes
over the flock of his days,
as one filed by behind the other,
every one the same.

This is the dusty song of papers.
Can you smell its blossoms
as it draws him to his room,
to the loved ones he has been neglecting,
and lists for him the number
of his dreams, his deserts, and his books?
He surveys his days and his preoccupations,
gazes on his loved ones,
sincere and cast aside.
He counts his books: one, two , four.

Then he slips away,
restless and morose.
Of him they say he is, as usual, dazed,
as one well might be
who contemplates a stream to touch the taste of dew.
They say he is impervious
to offenses,
they say he is too quick to find offense.
They say he is dismal
elated
absent-minded
as one well might be
who is given to the contemplations of streams and crows.

He remembers his friends
and forgives them their taunts.
He laughs
and releases all his birds into the fog.