1. O you who lingers behind the thick curtains
Give me solace that we do not meet

2. Time has entered as we hated between us
And scattered a gathering between us with separation

3. And I wished when I said I had parted from him
Beneath the tents that I had not believed

4. And I threw him shrouded in the weaving of soil
In the depths of a dark narrow confinement

5. And I did to him though I am gentle with him
When I despaired the actions of other than the gentle

6. And I turned away from him as if I had not met him
And as if I had not breathed his scent

7. I cry and no lament returns the departed
My anguish for him, nor my long burning

8. And I stole him from those who made him forbidden
So I lost him and wished I had not stolen

9. Where are those who built the lofty buildings
With lightning, and rumbling, and groaning

10. And who built the two pyramids then topped them
With plaster, and brocade, and silk

11. Or where is he who raised his palace high
In pride like a star suspended in the sky?

12. You would see the nights, morning and evening
The youth of its origin faded of elegance

13. Its doors would open to visitors
Then its fate shut it with a locked door

14. And how they laid out carpets in the hills
While now we lay him in the barren sands

15. And one crowned with inlaid carnelian
His skull in the grave is bare of refinement

16. Above his pit branches of myrtle
Tremble in a hole after stately pillars

17. Fate equalized between men so the valiant
Became like the coward and the noble like the villain

18. And when they passed away as bodies into decrepitude
They were discarded into the hands of a reckless fool

19. So their skins in the claws of every tearer
And their bones chewing in every gnawer

20. They had lodged in every towering castle
Yet now lodge in every desolate wasteland

21. As if their horseman never rose high
And their orator in an assembly did not speak

22. Say to him who hoarded treasure for others
In ignorance and gathered his money to disperse

23. If you were miserly in what you spent
It became despite you in the hands of a spender

24. And when the miser protects himself from his provision in stinginess
It is as if he was not provisioned

25. And a messenger brought me the news
So I wished his tongue was not created

26. And I struggled with all effort though it was certain
His saying if it was uncertain

27. So I spent the night from his companionless companion
On a pillow, sleepless and distressed

28. And I was deprived of every admirable trait
And lost from him everything graceful

29. And I sought him among men but he was not
And by God how many sought are not attained

30. It is as if after him I had a barrenness
Its friendly desolation like the elegant twilight

31. And indeed time has erased his manners and knowledge
From us, despite the wiping out destruction

32. So it is as if we never listened to his words
And as if we never breathed his scent

33. And if it were not fate that the youth defends
I would have defended him with every gentle, eloquent

34. Sword, delicate of blade, sharpened
And I would have broken in my defense the necks

35. Of the sly horses, the outstripping racers
Until one wounded met a wounded

36. And a stabber pierced by a stabber
In a melee hastening to fate

37. Crowding the narrow ground
All with bright brow like a moon

38. And a long, elegant neck
Crowding, so a pony in a pony

39. Or a stallion with his strike in a stallion
They had not drunk but the cups of their firmness

40. Nor eaten but the flesh of the slain
Their spears between the ribs in battle

41. Not the spears of burnt sires
And when they are stabbed the pierced blade

42. Became entangled in its wounds
And you accompanied me while I was a man armored

43. In the armor of youth and a cloak not worn
My audacity and vitality were not erased from me

44. Never, nor the freshness of my elegance waned
Clouds pouring poured on you

45. From every bursting kidney, torn
The thunder rolls had thunders that shamed

46. The roaring of the hissing enraged lion in the night
And it was as if accumulated deafness collapsed

47. From a towering mountain or grandeur from a dome
And your Lord did not water you with what He waters with

48. Neither with a water-skin, nor a flask
And I have lost in you a brother whose merits never ceased

49. To be like the sun or the shining planet
My hand was too weak to bid you farewell dead

50. So take all the farewell from my speaking