1. How many lessons for the coming generations
Lie hidden in the folds of bygone ages,

2. Nights pass like nights in their monotony,
Yet only enlightened souls perceive the gems.

3. Time destroys us though we fancy
That it is we who are passing its days and nights away.

4. When decay falls upon us we awake
To the phantom of a second life imagination has created.

5. Life is a poem whose rhyming
Couplets are our lives, and death is its refrain.

6. How you love this life, denying
That loss is the law of the verse;

7. You wish that its pleasures would stay with you
Though you know the turn of the verse is loss and decay.

8. Leave off your pride in what you own;
Your life and your soul are but guests here.

9. The high and mighty have been brought low
And the feet of the humble mounted high.

10. If one alive were above decay
Neither Hārūn nor Muʿāwiyah would have died;

11. The glory of Baghdad would have remained
Ever repulsing the armies that attacked her.

12. Misfortunes have blown over her till her dwellings
Lie open ruins bare for the sweeping winds.

13. The owl takes shelter undisturbed in her −
Target for every stone the mischievous boys hurl.

14. Fate descended and her walls could not protect her
Though long they had turned back the hostile invader

15. And the Caliphs she sheltered were like date palms
Whose crowns are only withered, leafless trunks.

16. Where are the high-aspiring palaces and their folk −
All have vanished and left no trace behind.

17. Time has altered them as writing is blotted
Out of parchment when the ink fades and disappears.

18. Yet their terraces can be seen like women whose veils
Have slipped and hang negligently round them.

19. Days when the torches of knowledge are not extinguished,
When its forums and schools are not left empty;

20. Days when the Book's idioms are still eloquent
And Bedouin hearts have not lost their ardour.

21. Days when the scholar envies not the wealthy
Nor warm furs in winter the scantily clothed.

22. Days when every beauty has one who woos it
And every poem flows from the eager poet's lips.

23. Days when Tigris, Euphrates, and every brook
Course calmly to the sea that gulps them greedily −

24. The Nile a faithful slave pouring its water
While stars vie to quench their luminous thirst.

25. Clouds imagine themselves pearls strung together
Or trees with their fruit weighing down the branches.

26. The gazelle in the sun at dawn sees her image
Mirrored in the limpid water and lingers to drink.

27. Days when the East is held in awe,
Its plains and hills clothed in majesty;

28. Days that other capitals envy
Just as the ancients envied their predecessors.

29. When Egypt boasted of its splendour
And Syria's fame was guarded by Antioch.

30. Days of Hārūn when he governed affairs
− Hail to that epoch of yours, Harun!

31. A leader who led ignorance away from his people
And broke the sword of the tyrant in their defence.

32. His generosity traveled to every region
Covering deserts and settled communities.

33. He filled the lands with learning and noble deeds,
Bringing justice, security, and ease.

34. So the Bedouins became civilized
And even the beasts shed their wildness.

35. And Baghdad was robed in majestic splendour,
None seeing the like of it before or since.

36. But those days have vanished, passing away
Like writing on a slate erased by a swipe.

37. Only their memory lives on, O their beauty!
A yearning that pierces the bones of the ruined.

38. If the ages were a journey, your era,
O Age of Enlightenment, would be its provision.

39. Should the harbinger herald its return
I would doff my years as garments outworn.

40. Alas for al-Má'mūn, immortal your memory
Fixed on earth like mountains solid and high.

41. It lasts through the ages like those of the noble
If no ideal remains for us to embody.

42. Your spirit dwells with us, kindly and generous,
A bright star, a sun declining at close of day.

43. How strange that you died though still living!
How came you to rest in the all-effacing tomb!

44. Time overthrows what you constructed
Yet time fears not the hand raised to admonish!

45. My soul pours its complaint out to you
For you are the refuge of every troubled soul.

46. Do you know your home has been changed
And voices of mourning replace the glad song?

47. Do you know that what you established
Negligent souls have dissipated and scattered?

48. Alas for the East after you! Truly it
Has sunk into weakness, tottering on the brink.

49. Once disdaining the stars, it is now content
If its people enjoy security and well being.

50. Plunging blindly into ignorance, as though
Bewitched, bitten by the daughter of the crafty.

51. Surrendering to destiny, as though seized
Unresisting by fate and the victor subduing.

52. To attain the noble is to gain the ideal;
For them the noble is but the tyrant or his lackey!

53. They love life for life's sake alone
While true living is to have a high aim and purpose.

54. Their souls have grown small so their leader fears
The coward as much as the despot overbearing.

55. Silently they bear humiliation like beasts
On whom not even threats have effect.

56. Never has the world heard of a people like them −
They died in life's midst, not in death's.

57. Had they sought to defend their glorious past
They would be the epitome of peoples risen high.

58. But the rabble took over all they had,
Even their swords, their lamps, and their pans.

59. Shameful that the Arabs now dread their ancestors
As their slaves turned masters now make free.

60. Sons of the Caliphs, heirs of past grandeur,
Unsheath your swords, joust in the Spanish arena!

61. In your history lies a truthful lesson
If you would question it−no other source as valid.

62. They led armies on every plain grown narrow
They besieged citadels, assaulting high towers.

63. Thrones toppled as monarchs fled in terror
And lofty palaces crashed to the ground.

64. High astride the stars they rode without cease
While around the stars' eyes watched, staring in fear.

65. Their steeds stirred the dust clouds to raging storms
As the comets bolted in fright, swift spurring.

66. Time granted dominion into their hands
Though time itself has no respect for the mighty.

67. I do not rouse you to emulate their conquests
But to keep inviolate what remains of their heritage.

68. Are your glorious ancestors' honours now lost
As nomads' cattle trample them underfoot?

69. How long will you bear degradation as though
Lulled in comfort, while shame is a fire blazing!

70. O men, do you not realize your worth
If you do not rise up you will be an extinct race!

71. Land of Peace, a poet sends you greetings
Though tears of blood, not words, match your calamity.

72. The stream of his tears spilt for you − if only
In times past he had wept at their misfortunes!

73.
Had your glory been regained by weeping

74. His eyelids' blood would have poured in torrents.
To you every grieving soul turns in sorrow

75. And for your afflictions the sad are called to mourn.