1. Beware, beware of leaning on time,
For who can remain upon it and who, who?

2. Have you not seen that fate comes to events
And the most ruinous thing for man is trials?

3. It is delighted with the world with what is going,
And cries over what was and did not exist.

4. I see our house is not for staying,
We wanted comfort in it, and it is in decay.

5. How many mighty kings inhabited the world
Then passed away and it did not preserve their dwelling.

6. And how many crowned heads the soil buried
Who in the morn appeared despised and disdained.

7. And one sheltered from harm in his mansion,
Harm came to him so he took shelter in the dirt of madness.

8. Like a hawk above the leading camels swollen with him,
The pinnacle of the poles of the bier arched over him.

9. And he whom the world was too narrow for him and his army,
Its expanse folded his person in a handspan of shroud.

10. And a recluse whose privacy the ear does not penetrate,
Death broke into him though he did not permit.

11. And one whose guards did not neglect guarding him,
It cast him down though he was not helped or aided.

12. And he whose shoulders were not covered by a worn-out cloak,
The worms ate him until the worm was satiated with eating.

13. And he who hoped, beyond him for a term for himself,
Time partnered with him destroying what was not before a partner to him.

14. So time did not trip up the hopes of the youth,
Or bring near the days of joy more than grief.

15. Spare yourself about the world, for its comfort
Is like the delusions of dreams that feel good without reality.

16. So while the youth was in its shadow when it tossed
And played with him while it is toying and weak.

17. May you live long, I am sorrowed but not disgraced,
And I was deserving of misery and being downcast

18. Fate stunned me with the death of my father,
And before that I had lost my brother Abu Al Hasan.

19. So for you two, moons of glorious men fallen down,
You were the delight of my eye and its teeth unblemished.

20. Shawwal included both their deaths together,
So a year separated them and their loss coupled me.

21. This one’s loss followed that one in succession,
A sun followed a moon and a branch followed a branch.

22. The club was empty of them both, and they were its dignity,
So its happiness was shaken and the doves of its bosom scattered.

23. And my meadow did not leave, after their perishing, any life,
And I used to water from them the rainclouds bent down.

24. So God gives me patience, but my lamentations, for I
Have spread endurance and withdraw into deep sorrow.

25. The greatest calamity appeared and grief hid
So I opposed all people in private and openly.

26. I said to my body empty of you is grief
And to the soul: miserable soul, what ails you that you do not build.

27. And my heart said: Do I melt from grief?
So I said: be quick, no, no to you and do so.

28. And my tears said: Do we melt from grief
With me blood poured forth? So I said: Do so, and if

29. After living is there any solace and patience?
For me, its skills are surely in disorder, so

30. Where are the lowly hands with which
Every child and elder and the fetuses testify against me?

31. And where is the tenderness I used to know it with?
So O heart, how sorrowful over it and how kind!

32. And how many favors from less than a favor came to me,
And people have no favors without favors!

33. And how many great visited me with himself,
Became despised, and if not for his kindness, he would not be lowly.

34. I will praise him for what he is deserving,
And if it is remiss, the shortcoming is from one with no tongue.

35. O my father, what a father! May God not distance his like,
And who is his equal, easy in the difficulty of time?

36. Generous, generosity adorns him, and humility,
Above that which he showed of generosity, how much he hid!

37. If asked for kindness, he poured forth torrents,
And if he himself was not asked, he burst forth or bent down.

38. And he did not hoard in his yesterday the food of his day,
The purity of a soul, not like one who took and stored.

39. His youth was between noble deeds and amusements,
And his old age between duties and traditions.

40. By my life, excellent is the man, living and dead,
For his burier the great pride in who he buried!

41. Blessed was his grave and purified from his soil
And sanctified from his spirit and guarded from his body.

42. I hoped for the pardon of the Protector, indeed He
Is the oft-forgiving King, of length and gifts.

43. To Him belongs the dominion in the two abodes and the judgement just as
His are the rulings and what dwells in the two.

44. And I hope for him the love of the Prophet Muhammad,
For the sins of his lovers are covered by his pardon

45. And I hope for his watering from a flowing spring,
Its basin between Ayla and Yemen sweeter than honey.

46. For he stood for God’s oneness and his life was five times prayer,
And he prayed on the Chosen and followed the sunna.

47. My friend, patience is patience, and I do not see
Other than it for my agony, it is the protector against madness.

48. Stop, two alive, at the grave in which my father is,
With me, it is an innocent view, free of deception.

49. And I, even if time turns by its changing
Upon me and varying tribulations from ordeals come to me,

50. Am not with the loss of anything from my father other than his person,
Or a seller of relatives for a cheap price.

51. Perhaps God in Paradise will gather us,
For destruction, if it gathers us, is good.