1. I was sleepless with grief that assaulted me after slumber
Over Khalid, so my eyes are ever tearful.

2. Whenever my eyes remember him, weeping drowns them,
And they overflow with blood from their sadness.

3. So they passed the night watching the stars, sickened eyes,
For what had exalted them and accustomed them to sorrow and illness.

4. And after fortune had cast me down with a casting down
That made my body stray and my bones tremble,

5. And after my bones were penetrated by disease,
A malady settled on my body,

6. And it became clear from me, because of the grief that had smitten me,
That I was wan of face, laden with cares,

7. Intensely sorrowful, revealing pallor, as if I were
A brother to demons whom madness possesses in body,

8. For lack of a man in whose neighborhood no neighbor would settle
And who was not complained of for estrangement and injustice.

9. He would requite the ignorant with forbearance and reproof
And was never abusive to a neighbor, however faulty.

10. He was not harsh, severing kinship,
But kept kinship joined, merciful and compassionate.

11. When you reproached others, you forgave
With superior virtue and knowledge.

12. When you said something, you did it,
Closing men's mouths, resolute and decisive.

13. If you have met your death and its changes,
You lived praised for your character and forbearance,

14. Noble in your splendid deeds, beloved
For your copious generosity, faultless.

15. You enjoyed the scent of the sword flash like a mid-morning breeze,
Far from corruption and sour temperament.

16. You gathered such deeds that some of them suffice
For great forbearance, kindness, and bounty.

17. Death came to you while your youth still flourished,
For death has no regard for guarding the soul.

18. Every man one day surely travels to death,
By a decree, when the promised time has come, decisively executed.

19. No living being has delayed his day
Beyond those who went before to the grave.

20. There will come to those who remain a day like the one
That came to those who passed away under the compulsion of Fate.

21. I will not forget him, though long his absence,
For after him, life no longer has any taste for me.