1. Worry disturbs while composure holds back,
And tears between them disobey yet obey.

2. They fight over the tears of a weeping eye,
One brings them and the other takes them away.

3. Sleep after Abu Shuja is disrupted,
The night lingers and stars are covered.

4. I'm cowardly of leaving my loved ones,
Yet my soul toughens with resolve like a dove.

5. The enemies' wrath makes me harsher,
A friend's blame breaks and rends me apart.

6. Life seems clear for an ignorant or heedless one,
Of what has passed and what is expected.

7. And one who deceives himself about facts,
And lets his soul covet the impossible and hope.

8. Where are those whom the pyramids were built for?
What of their people, their time, their place of death?

9. Traces lag behind their makers,
Until oblivion overtakes them and follows.

10. Abu Shuja's heart was not content with any wealth
before death, nor was any place wide enough for him.

11. We thought his houses brimmed with gold,
yet he died while every house of his was empty.

12. Now all swords and lances, spears
and crooked paths, everything comes together.

13. Glory is the greatest loss, generosity the worst deal,
for the noblest soul to live for them.

14. And people are too lowly in your time
for you to live equal to them though you are higher.

15. Repel the slander if you can with a word,
for it harms when it wants and benefits when it wants.

16. You've done no wrong toward a friend before it,
nothing objectionable or hurtful.

17. I've seen you bear no blame
that a deaf heart didn't absolve you of.

18. And a hand as if fighting and helping it
were an obligation you benevolently took on.

19. O you who change garments everyday,
when did you accept a garment you won't take off?

20. You kept taking it off for whoever wanted it
until today you wore what you cannot remove.

21. You kept deflecting every grave matter
until the matter came that cannot be deflected.

22. So you remained watching with no lances raised
against your shame, and no swords unsheathed.

23. By my father the army is numerous
as it weeps, and tears are the evilest weapons.

24. When you've gained tears instead of arms,
shame on your folly and misfortune that slapped you.

25. A hand has reached you to which
the buzzard and raven are equal.

26. Without you, gatherings, crowds and nights
have lost a lamp that will not rise again.

27. And whoever you made steward over hospitality,
they are lost, for one like you rarely loses.

28. How ugly is your face, O Time,
for it is a face marked with every ugliness.

29. Does one like Abu Shuja die forgotten
while his envious castrated enemy lives?

30. Severed hands surround his head
screaming, "Is there anyone who will slap?"

31. You left the greatest liar alive,
and took the most truthful speaker and hearer.

32. You spared the stench of a foul odor,
and robbed the sweetest fragrance of its scent.

33. So today, every snarling beast's blood
has become sacred, as if it hopes and waits.

34. The fruits of whips and their horses
have reconciled, and their marketplace and arms are one.

35. The aggressor has forgiven, so no piercing lance
looms over the canal, nor shining sword.

36. They have turned away, intimate and close friend,
after loyalty, abandoning and bidding farewell.

37. The one in whom all peoples found refuge,
and for whose sword in every people there was pasture.

38. If he stayed among Persians, their ruler
would kneel to him, humbled and bending.

39. Or if he stayed among Romans, their Caesar,
or if he stayed among Arabs, their Tubba.

40. He was the swiftest horseman with a stab
but death is swifter.

41. After him, the horsemen's hands did not
brandish a lance again, nor carry a steed.