1. Stand still and wonder at my sorry state and my affliction
For sighs escape me and tears flow

2. I was once resilient but love has undone
All the patience I could muster

3. The hand of time has struck me with love
For those I love, with arrows of separation from whence I know not

4. You have left me today confused
Though I was once master of my will

5. I shall cry my life away in agony and yearning
For you, and my life is but short if I weep it away

6. I shall shed copious, searing tears for our separation
And if I do not weep blood, how can I be excused?

7. I complained of your love that I am sleepless,
Pining for you, or withdrawn after you, my mouth agape

8. How can I heal my heart of you through stoicism
When by my creed stoicism is but treachery’s kin?

9. I made you my reserve for days of adversity
Not knowing fate would rob me of my reserve

10. They say time will end sorrow in the end
But my sorrow for you will last until the end of time

11. The perfidious have left writhing sorrows
Echoing in my breast

12. They consigned my woeful heart to anguish
And tasked my eyes with copious tears

13. Will time allow for their return
That I may fulfil my vows and dues to you?

14. I would be content for my eyelids to point to the grave,
That my imagination may be placated

15. My soul is a stranger, bereft of kith and home, who sees
No redeemer to ransom him from the heat of the matter

16. When he recalls his home, his tears flow
Which he sends above the dunes and the meadows

17. Death came to it while it was in the raiment of bliss
So curse the blissful one deluded by his world

18. Of no use was all that circled its pavilions
Of the black snakeskin and the reddish saddlebags

19. If the red and black horses of death were contested
With a white thoroughbred and a chestnut mare

20. A sovereign father would defend it with swords and spears
His command supreme, his rule enforced

21. If it left the palace of the caliphate forlorn
It has in Paradise eternal a palace adorned

22. O grave, from Euphrates to Tigris
To the river of Jesus, the rain has made you flow

23. Morning and eve, the downpour of the Gardens
Of Paradise saturate you, copious and pure

24. By God, O grave, how much piety you contain
Such generosity, honour and abundance concealed!

25. One who, had his fate surpassed the stars
Would have added to the heavens further glory untold

26. Had your mere pebbles known who lies
Prostrate within, the stars would pale at the sight!

27. O what a grave you are! Your occupant
Has turned the dwellers of hearts onto embers

28. We pass by it humbled, as if
By the Stone and the Sacred Enclosure we stir

29. Our prayers around it are never denied
Every night by it is Laylatul Qadr*

30. Upon you, greetings of God every dusk
As night returns in the wake of dawn

31. Clouds of your rain generosity roil
Though you have had your fill of rain and tidings

32. We have mourned you, O best of women, in worship
One like you is not mourned with prose or verse

33. And one whose realm is verses of elegy
Is too great that his death be marked by elegy

34. You withdrew from sights in reverence
In grandeur, carried from one sanctuary to the next

35. You have settled in familiar company, inhabited,
While tombs settle into desolate ruins

36. Your companion there is honour and martyrdom
Light upon light, and reward upon reward

37. You remain still in the precincts of favour
For the righteousness you have sent forth before

38. And patience, O Commander of the Faithful, for her loss
Though mighty is this loss, beyond enduring

39. How many kings of earth whose lifetimes
You have inherited in times of woe

40. You are of those of whom verses descended
In the Mother of the Book**, clear and plain

41. They are God’s trustees among us, imams of guidance
And intercessors on the Day of Reckoning

42. When they inherit other than their religion
They spurn the fleeting for the eternal reward

43. O king of the kings of east and west
Of coasts and lands, of joy and sorrow, land and sea

44. I seek refuge for you from any care
That would divide your thoughts despite your power

45. Unleash your resolute might on the enemy land
Bring down the hand of doom on the foe’s realm

46. You are promised by God that you will behold
Your enemies prostrate, necks in your grip

47. Ever unfurled is your conquering standard
Your battalions victorious, your cavalry flanked by triumph