1. We were overcome with harm and fear consumed us,
And darkness called with no way to salvation.

2. Shall I write a line with no apprehension
Of your Lord? How apt are your fingers for harm!

3. And if ten are appointed, after what they reaped,
More than ten are destined for each harvest.

4. The days have not ceased to portend in their circuit
Eternal woe, so that I feel no gladness.

5. And my ink has wrought havoc on the page, as though
It were new, carving your ink's hull with peel.

6. Most wondrous is the call of a summoner I fear:
"You have come, so rally, O slumbering, to the assembly."

7. Would that we had lived a life without misery,
By the hand of fate, or died a death without agony.