The translation is choppy, but the sentiment strikes me deep.
“Ask him who taunts us with the vissitudes of fortune; has fortune ever thwarted any but men of worth?
Look at the sea: do not carcasses float on the surface, while pearls lie deep on its bottom?
If the hands of trouble have fastened upon us and injury befallen us from a succession of blows
Well, there are countless stars in the heavens but only the sun and moon suffer eclipse..”
– written by Ziyar Bin Shahraguyah in the year 982, from jail
Found on page 21, in volume VI of “The Eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphate”, by Abu Shuja Rudhrawari and his secretary, Hilal Bin Muhassin.
Translated into English by D.S. Margoliouth, 1921, utterly out of print and lifted^H^H^H I mean borrowed by myself from a certain local library…