1. If I had a shield against fate,
I would have protected you, O Abul Khattab, from its blows,

2. Verily time and no affliction upon a time
Gave me the bitter drink after losing you when it gave water.

3. How much you clothed the boughs when they withered
With water from your outstretched, bountiful hand and leaves.

4. And how much you made flow without trouble or sorrow
Clinging to you in fear and holding fast.

5. Some people attained and settled every high place,
Yet what you attained among people never coincided.

6. You hoarded nothing but praise and magnanimity,
While they only hoard the fountain and the leaves.

7. You ruled time, gaining no provision from it,
And affairs after you belong to those provisioned.

8. So you turned not to vanity or play,
Nor sent for your needs insistently.

9. You counseled kings, and the people wished
They had counseled, but never attained those heights.

10. You were the gate to kings, but since
You tasted misfortune, that gate has shut and locked.

11. And you left nothing of the world and its adornments
After losing you except its ruins taken by creation.

12. Your state was the reddening of the two sides coming together,
You shone in it with clear, penetrating insight.

13. And in a position perilous in its dimensions you stood
While the sword blades were strewn between them cleaving.

14. You stabbed with your view there, and the spear was straight,
And stabbing cleaves bodies whether high or low.

15. So they saw what you used to do
In one insolent or apostate straying away.

16. They slept, neglecting to support the king,
While you alone were wakeful supporting him.

17. You were sincere in supporting him until you established for him
A pillar, and the noble one in the matter is the sincere one.

18. O, treaty of a palace built upon a rubbish heap,
You have become the treaty of a ruin upon the throne.

19. O, edifice, atop sand dunes of great height,
How could you accept a collapse to become lowly?

20. They wanted you to join the most towering heights,
Can you see anyone reaching the abode of a star?

21. I trusted you with what I did not fear failing,
And many a time those who trusted failed.

22. And you were my fortress, strong, in every quandary,
A cool, flowing water in the heat of afflictions.

23. So which eye, that did not shed tears for you,
And which heart has not burned from the fire of anxiety?

24. Had you looked upon us after we were parted,
You would have seen those whom you nurtured split open.

25. Honor me by sacrificing for some wretches among us
While your pledge is locked in the grip of misery.

26. And that the peerless one see you amid desolation,
He who, had you occurred to him, would meet misery cleft.

27. If you touch the dust with a gown,
You have long been touching the noblest dress.

28. And if you touched the earth dead, you never accepted
From it brocades or silk.

29. And if you dwelled silent to fate, with what
You had become the most eloquent speaker speaking.

30. And if you kept one position, with what
You attacked the heights, the text, and the neck.

31. And if you passed away, your hand left
Among us the beauty that did not pass but set out.

32. So we have no health after his death,
Nor a cure for one whose life is fading.

33. He was nothing but a star who disappeared from the horizon,
And nothing but a glorious record for mankind that flowed.

34. The owner of lightning bolts in their entirety is gone,
So forget, at his death, the one who owns the lightning.

35. You never met an affliction,
Nor did decrepitude give you to drink mouthfuls or sips.

36. Go, your bounty has enabled you to possess
The souls of men, and you have provided me burning thirst.

37. A grave you dwelt in shall remain
Filled with the scent of life diffusing fragrance.

38. And if I pass by a tomb you resided in
I will crane my neck toward you after passing it.