1. When your ill-omened star appeared
And the ropes' ends began to creak,

2. The prayer caller wailed and the bells tolled
So the night grew murky and the day sullen.

3. The storms began to rage,
And emotions,

4. While death hovered,
Sometimes swooping, sometimes snatching,

5. And the eternal chisel kept burrowing
To return them to her stony heart.

6. A day dawned upon the empty ages
And summoned something amazing to be.

7. Another day, more formidable, answered:
I will tell of those inquisitorial tribunals.

8. Indeed I have seen wonders
And strangenesses,

9. But in you are tribulations
And afflictions

10. The like of which I have never encountered in their tyranny.
Ask anyone else - how much is in them of abomination!

11. And there was a day, chained in its fetters,
And history, some of its witnesses, answered:

12. Look at the bondmen, white and black,
Whoever desired, they were his with his money.

13. Men bought and sold
So they were freed,

14. And time went backwards,
By what I see.

15. I heard him who banned selling and buying bondsmen
Calling out to the freemen: O you who would buy!

16. And there was a day, shrouded in its gown,
Moaning from the ecstasy of hangovers.

17. It answered: Not so! Apart from what makes you weep, what ails you?
I am in sublime education where my youth was wasted.

18. And I witnessed the killer whom I saw,
It made me weep blood,

19. Woe to him, how unjust!
But not like you.

20. I have never encountered anyone with your good fortune.
Go, perhaps you are the Day of Resurrection!

21. The days deny him while the passed nights
Keep glancing at him with confused eyes.

22. How strange are the judgements of unjust fate!
Yet its least are like prevailing injustice.

23. A country moves toward annihilation
Without hope,

24. And the disease has no cure
Save resignation.

25. Resignation indeed is a defense, if
A soul takes it on though dying unconquered.

26. All hope that his pardon will come early.
We pray it will not cloud his serenity.

27. If this is his compassion and gentleness,
Long live His Majesty and long live his loftiness!

28. The mail bore it out in detail -
How beautiful!

29. Why not just implore
And supplicate?

30. And death takes speech and renders it.
So take life by the shortest path.

31. The mailbag narrowed and the situation did not change,
And humiliation in our lines has forms.

32. Our loss is souls and monies
While dignity - would that it had values!

33. Do you see and ask
What will happen?

34. Deception has skills
Like madness.

35. Far from it! If the abject soul became
A creature of eyes, still it would not see.

36. How can one whose voice doubts be heard?
How can one whose eye weeps benefit?

37. It is rock that felt our hope and cracked,
And hope came to their hearts and was hacked to pieces.

38. Do not wonder - from rocks
A spring gushes.

39. And they have hearts
Like tombs, without feeling.

40. Never seek one day to have hope in one
Whom you have tested and found unfeeling.