1. My heart was troubled, would that it had not been troubled,
And was concerned with the memory of a dear friend long gone.

2. Foolishly, had I but heeded the admonitions of my censurers
Regarding that which they indicate at the foot of the winding path.

3. I would have restrained a heart that pays no heed to restraint.
For the willful, when forbidden, does not reproach.

4. So refrain from this, and speak of other things,
And recall the fine qualities of your generous brother.

5. O noblest pillar of the generous, your forefathers before you,
You have left me to walk with a limping companion.

6. For the calamity—there is no calamity like it—
Is the loss of each brother, like the setting of a planet.

7. Gone are those in whose shelter I found refuge,
Leaving me among those who slough their skin like a lizard.

8. They practice hypocrisy and betrayal,
And he who speaks against them is blamed, though he did no wrong.

9. And Ja'far once showed me as a downpour shows
The furrows of plowed land softened into mud.

10. From every elder stern as a spear and lord
Difficult to reach like the distant Phoenix.

11. From a tribe whose fathers established for them
Glory, which comes without having to seek it.

12. So my bones saw me, when their flesh was gone, bereft of them,
For time, were I to reproach it, is no reproacher.