1. From where can I find a cure for my days,
And a remedy for my lingering illness?

2. Or one to guarantee I will live an hour,
While death is behind me and before me.

3. My will has no power over what nights decree,
O companion given neither to binding nor loosing!

4. Calamity swept away my kin and friends.
It clung to fathers and uncles,

5. And uprooted my brothers and tribesmen together,
And dried up my spring at times and sources at others.

6. It made my fingers yellow with grief for a brother,
Whose abode I could seek or to whom I could complain.

7. And I see that when people vanish, erased
By the hand of fate, the like befell my people.

8. How much that I sought went astray from me,
While my abode, which I never imagined, came about!

9. Success came to a lad though I did not hope for it,
And the hand of disappointment vanished with him.

10. Are we in our days anything but a folk—
Deaf, without understanding or clarity?

11. It is as though we merely shed our skins in them,
As lifetime sheds on our bones its flesh.

12. We crave joining with a lethal robber,
Yet long for an abode unlike one of dwellings.

13. I wish an endless continuance in them, falsely,
Though none attained it—where is my continuance?

14. Man in this life passes judgment, while fettered
Between resolve and temptation.

15. In the grip of humiliation, instead of magnanimity,
Or defeat, instead of heroic determination.

16. And meekness and disgrace lead him, controlled
By a poltroon, or prodded on by a tyrant.

17. We are forbidden, as though oblivious in this world
From beasts.

18. We mourn for this world, though our lifetimes pass in it,
So that whether delighted by it or grieving over it, our eyelids slumber.

19. Its nursing is not wholesome—its nursing
Is ruin next to weaning!

20. Long life, when done with, is like a specter
That a sleepy eye saw in a dream.

21. It deludes me so I fancy myself immortal—
However much extended, my years!

22. If I am admonished about those who went before me in the land,
Then the death of all creatures is my demise.

23. How many woes I endured and warded off
Now with a spear, now with preparedness!

24. I ascended every steep pass in manners
And towered over every high ridge in noble deeds.

25. Until when the doves began to visit me,
Neither my capacity to ride nor my reins saved me.

26. The traveler needs a pause in his journey,
And the speakers among us, some hesitation.

27. Those rising above people, above tombs,
Must be lowered from the highest standards.

28. A catastrophe befell me, obscuring my insight,
And casting the light from my wings into darkness.

29. I was heedless of it, though disasters are false
Coins—waking is far from sleep!

30. It made off safely with the bridle of my determination,
And time’s changes grasped my decline,

31. Breaking my resolve, its arrival being the cause
Of the collapse of my order’s framework.

32. My heart pounded with it—and a stumble
Of the heart makes the legs forget their steps.

33. Say to the minister—who has tasted something of its heat
When, unlike a wine cup, it came to him:

34. You were saddened by grief after joy with us
And by loss after attainment.

35. If fate assails you with what we do not approve,
Then I have no blame for it.

36. And if its cycles turn aside from your field,
We are content with any outcome.

37. Remaining submissive is easy for one who spends the night
Between snarling lions and serenity.

38. And if you are valid from false accusation, then leave us
Wounded by any word you wish.

39. Let it pass, if the noble scorn familiarity,
And cease to censure if they shun you.

40. Show patience with it, though it recoils,
For patience in tribulation grows for the noble.

41. If you show distress, how can a people be patient
Who lack your visions and dreams?

42. Perhaps the grieving soul may sin, though
Our hands remain untainted by crimes.

43. You who, when we alighted at his valley,
Sought joy in slopes of withering plants and wild lavender.

44. Share out, and if one portion is yours, that is best
Of all portions.

45. If there is estrangement, then be calm and composed;
If intimacy, then seek the highest place.

46. Your generous acts are thanked that ransomed
Long-term captivity with obligation.

47. Let the rancor pass that seized its partisan
Who plucked a swift ostrich of the desert.

48. I emulate you in matters and pitch my tents
Wherever you lodged your tents in the lands.

49. If you settle in grief, I too settle there.
If you intend patience, I am patient.

50. My rising and sitting await your desire;
My standing and sitting, your fear.

51. I learned from you noble forbearance
When I displayed it to the lands with pride.

52. Do not deny me if I incline in ordeal,
For you are the pillar propping me.

53. The limbs of men all shift throughout time,
Swayed by inner thoughts and fancies.

54. Of all bonds, only love’s bondage
Binds fast the hearts of men.

55. O house of Abbas, but for whom
We would be in darkness without lanterns!

56. If your elder departs, your stallion remains,
A stallion for you and for us through the years.

57. Let sorrow for the departed cease, may he rest!
Let it flow into a sea brimming over!

58. If one branch withers, feel no distress, for
The mother trunk remains, lofty and erect.

59. None who passed on is gone, his darkness is
For vigil, his day for fasting.

60. God bless the one who thwarted destiny,
And greetings and peace be upon his tomb!

61. Let every cloud, morn and eve, weep for him;
Let the eye of every mist weep for him daily!

62. He who left yellow, departed untouched
By filth or unlawful raiment.

63. He performed the dawn prayer to God’s satisfaction,
No day blamed him of darkness.

64. He curbed passion to fulfill his duties—
However my pen hastened or advanced.