1. My day with you, oh Abu Ishaq,
Was but farewells to desires and partings.

2. And most difficult for the youth was parting
When it was joined with no further meeting.

3. Your death brought me a knocker at night,
But it was not like a gentle tapper.

4. For sorrow lights a fire within my ribs,
Not for prayers or water from a vendor.

5. Before you, my eyes never wept,
Nor my sides tossed in discomfort.

6. I carried the strokes of fate and they were not
As heavy as losing you among us.

7. Without your love, no care would have found
My heart or kindled fires inside me.

8. You were torn from me, the better part
Of my life, and I was stricken to the core.

9. In my heart, your loss has left an ache
In the heart, greater than the prick of thorns.

10. When I saw you on the bier of Sharja,
My horizons grew dark before my eyes.

11. After you gone it is as if I have
A withered hand or branch without leaves,

12. A rider in the waste without spear
Or quiver, and no food or water skin.

13. When you left I was torn with sorrow
And longing for you since you've been gone.

14. My friend who found me narrow in generosity,
Do not let your honor make your path narrow.

15. How many short nights after you were made
Long by my sighs of grief and pouring tears.

16. And if you were ransomed from fate's first onslaught
With the swords and eyes of angry men,

17. And every open-chested hero
Leading the honorable way fell before you.

18. As you strike down the foolish with your generosity
And surpass those hoping for gifts.

19. Alone your palms have dealt out
Sustenance to mankind from on high.

20. When dressed in fine clothes, they care not
For crowns and circlets round their necks.

21. They were led to graves as though a flock
Driven by some shepherd to the fold.

22. Cast down in dark depths of passion
Veiled from dawn and first light.

23. Brought down from every lofty pinnacle
Where feet cannot climb the stair.

24. Though they filled the sky itself, now lie
Between layers of earth, in its depths.

25. What deception time makes with its false
Affection, shattering bonds of love.

26. Each day it turns from the one
Who hopes in vain for constancy.

27. When I stretch out my hands to time
And tighten its bonds round my wrists,

28. Yet my fate is left to a criminal
With only dice determining the throw.

29. Your heart found no rest with me for an hour
Before your beating wings startled you to flight.

30. And the misfortune is that we are bound
In lifelong marriage to this life.

31. Each day we drink deep of its poison
From caution and fear of its evils.

32. Yet I am captive to it, so who will strive
To free me from the days that come?

33. If you were not of my own race, you had
The manners of my people and their morals.

34. Love between men binds them close
Better than the ties of blood.

35. Who has preserved our glory's standard
Or cast down the crescent banner's curve?

36. Who has our robes and still revels
In the soft burbling of that fount?

37. If silenced from speaking, still you ruled
However you wished, with but a gesture,

38. If barred from traveling, after you roamed
And wandered far horizons.

39. If bowed down by fate beyond the tomb,
By your great deeds in life you excelled.

40. If you embraced the dust, long were you
Borne upon the shoulders of men.

41. Let him who loves me go after you went,
As my darling left with my consent.

42. After losing you I've no sweet friend
In the world to savor like your taste.

43. All gardens of eloquence entwined around you
And gave you to drink when you wished.

44. They refused all men till you came and mastered them
By your verse and hija' poetry.

45. You held them all your life until you died
And so they gained freedom by your death.

46. They sought your path and you surpassed them,
Not pausing to let them catch you.

47. Now, despairing of them, they know
Eloquence is in the Giver's hands.

48. Let every diseased kidney water your grave,
Morning and evening their flowing spout.

49. When the clouds and rain have moistened the dust,
There you'll find the reward you have chosen.

50. Time destroys not those who avoid its touch
And leave behind enduring words.

51. If you have gone with great merit still
In those you sired, you live on, eternal.