1. How I wish to ascend the heights of kingdoms,
Yet life passes amidst that,

2. Ruin follows the trail of ruin,
How many a brother or intimate friend of mine fate has entangled,

3. And the hand of doom has turned him from me,
The havoc of devastation accomplishing with an owner,

4. You have gone far, O Yahya, to the distance of ruin,
To a distance with no words and no leaver,

5. But it is the taking of devastation to the brink,
Meeting the coward and the intrepid killer,

6. You have been replaced by the earth, soil of the graves,
And by the light, depth of a perished, destroyed tomb,

7. And by the companion, the croaking of a mourner,
A mourning woman who has triumphed over her mourner,

8. Ways that did not return with a returner,
Tired at the riders and the litters,

9. You were given to drink the draft of presses,
From every cistern of blessed abundance,

10. Of a udder like the teats of unmilked ewe,
My world, your abode did not last,

11. Alas! That I should hang on your ropes,
And the wounds you made on my body have not healed,

12. And this is some of your doings,