1. O you who died with beauty still alive,
The grave claimed only your mortal remains.

2. You are the youth who stays, by your effects,
You did not die when death itself did die.

3. How can decay reach out its hand to you
When your fair soul is one of countless throng?

4. If dawn's hue disappears from within the rose
The fault lies with the vision, not the rose.

5. The blossoms wither but the fragrance stays,
Man passes on but his good name remains.

6. O you who sleep to life's delusions lost,
I found that death was hidden in delusions.

7. If the past is gone, do we say, "It is gone"?
From where, then, does life keep coming anew?

8. Is not this waking world the world of dreams
While death's mere shadow darkens worldly joy?

9. Our minds divide all things in categories -
Yet the palm tree was once but a seed.

10. Tomorrow is yesterday, and yet we say,
In ignorance, "The past is dead and gone."

11. Part of death's secret implies survival,
While dying may mean life for the steadfast soul.

12. O you, the village magnified your soul,
Until base souls of tyrants it outgrew.

13. The prey in your hut envied your lot,
While cities envied the village you knew.

14. Those high traits shine still brightly amongst us,
As the stars which glitter and glow in the sky.

15. Your wisdom's bounty is lasting for us.
While the Mother Tongue lives, your words will not die.

16. Deep in men's souls, deep in time's record scrolls, Deep midst the pearls of poesy's necklace bright,
Your life still glows.

17. With some, song flows as dew in the rose,
Your spirit in them love songs reciting.

18. Others - their words like those gleaned from the lute -
Seem stolen from minstrels in hour of delight.

19. Others - their styles with rays of light suffused,
Like jewels exquisite, finely fused.

20. Some followers' hearts, like the meadows in Spring,
Your wisdom's impress fair flowerets bringing.

21. Not even death could strike you down, O Oak!
Towering, territories immense you cloaked.

22. Authority of Arabic's classical tongue,
Ocean deep, Trusted Guide your whole life long.

23. Now the emphatic D sounds its dirge for you
Present devotees and ages vanished do.

24. In Lebanon is only grief displayed;
No more around Euphrates accolades.

25. If one Mount grieves, grief will all summits shake - On every side sadness and sorrow awake.
Seventy years for its sake your quill wore down

26. In the world of books and scrolls of high renown.
People talk on around, but you're in prayer,

27. Like a worshipper deep in his devotions there.
You sang the emphatic D in all its modes -

28. To water-carriers and drunkards on the roads.
To it you gave back the prime of youth anew,

29. For love works magic in all it seeks to do.
So Arabic's being was thrilled to its roots

30. And water of beauty gushed through its words.
Its horizons rang with your name everywhere,

31. In meadow and valley and mountain tops bare.
The camel-drivers murmured it o'er and o'er,

32. While their camels picked their way slow and sure.
O youth who seek glory, true glory's there

33. In the souls who lived great lives free of all care.
O you who seek riches, better seek the best -

34. The gifts which the generous know how to invest.
This needy one gave though he suffered privation.

35. The best gifts are those of the soul and spirit.
No seeker of bounty his threshold e'er crossed,

36. He thanked the good Lord for the blessings he lost.
Though the thankless might spurn him and leave him alone,

37. His gifts travelled on with the men generous known.
So he was like a planet around which do steer,

38. In its orbit, the travellers both far and near.
He was like the rain when it first wets the plain,

39. Bringing nurture to gravel, to flowers and grain.
Like a spring people used, both the noble and base -

40. Puritan calm and corrupted in case.
He was like the sky, limitless, rapt, serene -

41. Where the pure and profane, all unruffled, are seen.
O planter of gardens, sleep now carefree,

42. For in death ends at last all complaining.
No water is gone which but comes back as stream,

43. Makes the fields laugh with life, and the gardens green.