1. How often hopes are dashed and dreams prove false,
While people in the land of illusion roam confused.

2. Desires never sated, souls that find no peace,
Finery and guile, nothing but deceit.

3. Each day fate deals a blow,
Against us, and to death we must submit.

4. When the appointed time arrives to take a man,
It's as though he never lived, no joy or peace.

5. For death the strongest is in all the land,
This sickness and these pains its servants be.

6. When we know for sure that we must part from all
We love, farewell, the time has come to leave.

7. You who would ward off death, do not try,
No strength of arm can make its call delay.

8. When the appointed time seeks out souls, voices cry
In vain, and courage flees in disarray.

9. Swords other than the swords of Fate there are none,
No coat of mail death's thrust and cut can turn away.

10. Why each day with death my life enlist?
Give in to passion's rule, and sense betray?

11. Like the careless pigeon, wary too and wise,
Yet heedless dove and fierce hawk both make their way

12. To where the wine cup levels master and slave,
And first and last are leveled on that day.

13. Those slow to start when death calls hurry fast,
While fastest runners lag behind and stay.

14. Time stabs with fate - no coat of mail resists,
No medicines avail, life slips away.

15. It gives and takes, seizes unjustly too,
For strife still arms and girds time for the fray.

16. Give generously, though sometimes you regret,
For avarice fouler is by far they say.

17. Contentment in a poor man greater worth
Than rich men's surfeit where cravings hold their sway.

18. Say to the miser who hoards up his gold:
Your urge to gain and keep will pass away.

19. Do you not know the hand of fate will take
All you amass and leave your coffers bare?

20. You thought your treasure buried in the earth
Was secret and concealed from prying day.

21. But no! Fate steals your store, twill not remain,
So curse the house that makes its people stay,

22. Not quit, hoping vainly to prolong
Their joys, heedless that life will slip away.

23. All sold their bliss for suffering in the end,
Though now they mourn the bargain that they made.

24. When blamed that avarice their wits had marred,
They said: blame our nature, we were made this way.

25. Yet see what avarice has done to them
Whose only wish was joy and pleasure's way.

26. Where are they whose lofty palaces once vied
To build the highest, proudest rich display?

27. For every tyrant, haughty, disobeying men,
Once feared, now powerless in death's harsh sway.

28. Gone their might, now under dust they sleep,
With only grave and worms their bed are made.

29. Laid low their monuments by fate, whose hand
Destroys the proudest works man's skill portrayed.

30. All men lament when death their own o'ertakes,
And grieve to see joy's household waste away.

31. Misfortune's flood around me rose so high,
I and all others in its turmoil swayed.

32. One dear to me, my friend, was taken too,
While scum and villains flourish, crimes outweigh.

33. Into the grave she sank and left me here,
Where shooting stars still briefly shine by day.

34. Would that the one who parted unexpectedly
Had thought how grievous is the leave we take.

35. You were the chaste and righteous one, while here
Remain the vile and wicked, crime holds sway.

36. The tombs, the vacant wombs of earth, for you
Gaped wide, while floods of tears in torrents rain.

37. To earth's embrace the best of goods I gave,
For earth takes all, enriching its dark clay.

38. I did my duty, lodged you with a folk
Who shun all evil, true to wisdom's way.

39. A land for Allah's people, kinsmen of
The Prophet, whom horizons far obey.