1. Indeed I know, and the wise one is aware,
That life, though you are deluded by it,

2. And I saw everyone justifying himself
With an excuse, yet to annihilation he goes.

3. Inhabitant of Damascus, a pledge detained
In it the light with its face and the radiance.

4. I did not think before your burial in the soil
That the stars in the dust would sink.

5. I did not hope before your bier to see
Complacency in the hands of men walking.

6. They went out with it and for every weeping mourner behind it
Were the swoons of Moses the day Mount Tur was shaken.

7. And the sun in the middle of the sky is sick
And the earth quivering about to crumble.

8. And the fluttering of angels' wings around it
And the eyes of the people of Latakia like images.

9. Until they came to a grave as though its tomb
In the heart of every monotheist engraved.

10. With a shrouded one clothed in decay from his kingdom,
Forgiving while his kohl-lined eye flows.

11. In it eloquence, magnanimity, piety,
Ferocity altogether, protection and good.

12. Sufficed him praise in compensation for his life
When it was folded as though published.

13. And as though Jesus son of Mary his mention
And as though Lazarus his buried form.