1. Do not deny my sickness, or my wasting away,
Time's vicissitudes wear out all that's new,

2. Did you think my limbs were frozen,
Or my heart made of iron within my chest?

3. I parted from Mahmoud, yet my resolve
Did not waver, nor did the two Hidhans with Mahmoud.

4. An ordeal befell us all equally,
The coward's soul and the courageous one's mettle.

5. It makes the sky's punishment like its favor,
And kills the forest's lion like the master.

6. The wolf and the sheep are equal beneath it
As are the firm and the pliant, the generous and the stingy.

7. It wronged Lobaid and Lokman and ruined
Their luck, and toppled Ghiylan before and

8. Then bent its tyranny toward Mas'ud.
Life was not free of turmoil and grief,

9. I grieve for its transient glories,
Though to enjoy what exists is proper.

10. No state of calamity or blessing
Lacks a gloating or despondent envious one.

11. When they allow whom I love, they forbid me
A day of union after a year of estrangement.

12. He was nothing but unsheathed then sheathed,
Woe to that unsheathed then sheathed sword!

13. A branch from a garden of Sa'did,
How much glory it grew, and noble deeds!

14. A crescent moon frightening you when it appears,
Had days allowed it more time.

15. I yearn for him though our promised reunion
Is neither due nor to be returned.

16. He settled into dust yet remains near, his figure
Not distant from imagination's eye.

17. My envious foes think stillness means defeat
While a heart with feeling is not frozen.

18. The land's expanse was too narrow so he found
No place to attain what he desired.

19. How to go and where is his path
When sorrow ties gatherings and bosoms?

20. Blessed is he, a witness from Waleed,
Whose fathers and forefathers were generous.

21. Imagination spoke of his superior innate disposition,
Inherited before his cultured birth.

22. It was as if I saw and heard him
On the day of the tumult and public gathering.

23. Beneath that silence lies much astute wisdom
Had time allowed its clouds to spread.

24. A branch ennobled by its roots' renown,
And the roots, what testimonies and witnesses!

25. I wouldn't blame your nature for my sorrow
If my fire for you had permanence.

26. A glance melted my bitterness and tears
After long harshness and frost.

27. You provided, while I remained, grief
Nothing else could provide in wares.

28. Had you lived, life would not be so base
And my share of you not so paltry.

29. You settled wild hearts after soft intimacy,
Then suddenly the customary was strange.

30. I submit at times to despair's judgment of you
And other times weep, confused and searching.

31. I pretend to blame you while my passion's true
And it is the missing one, not you.

32. My grief, as death's weakness closes his eyes,
After that effort and wasting away,

33. My hand roams his cooling body,
My tears pouring over every plain.

34. Restless for yourself, gone, past,
And shocked you were that arrival, foretold.

35. I'm accustomed to you like a childhood friend,
So it stole you, stealing the gentle sweetheart.

36. I let visiting loved ones go for a night
That made me forget nights of union and intertwining.

37. I may forget wine and its preaching
With intoxication by the daughter of the grape cluster.

38. But death destroyed Caysum and her sister
And wiped out Aad, then Thamud after.

39. How many alive have left empty wells
And a palace standing there built?

40. In death's law it's clear,
No difference between wretched or fortunate.

41. It took the hand of one who disliked guidance
And counted the pigeons of the generous.

42. It obeyed Pharaoh and Moses after
Being warned and specified by speech and calling.

43. It came upon the tribes until not one
Witness or witnessed remained of them.

44. It made Solomon grieve and his family weep,
The one who makes Solomon weep over David.

45. The speech of the birds, what a miracle!
Yet the two burdens, what troops can compare?

46. The beasts, the wind, and the plains it stripped
Strutting under its flowing locks.

47. Where is the serpent's lair where the pebbles
Hide over the outstretched plain?

48. Alas, courage and wealth cannot rescue
From the grip of that day, loss itself.

49. Many generations passed between them
Their endings too many to count.

50. Every living being, like Muhammad,
Has an exemplar, and Muhammad is the praised stance.

51. How many lessons lie in the places of death
Of his family, darkened by blackening.

52. So emulate the supporter, the poisoned one, the killed one,
And the dragged one to Yazid.

53. And Mashrifiya, the red wound,
The air thicker in darkness.

54. There was a kingdom containing Ghayth
Had Nu'man lived after Ubayd.

55. Ask about Ziyad and his son, and return
To Amr - ask, did he live after Sa'eed?

56. Marwan's youth wrung out his soul,
Violating a pact and covenants.

57. He extracted the souls of Mus'ab and his brother
Obeying hatreds, not the Worshipped.

58. He sinned against Asma in an unforgiveable
Sin that cracked the essence of the rocky-cliff heart.

59. He weakened so he died, almost extending
An excuse had he lived, the lost vanished one.

60. No day has passed, or is passing,
Without a beginning to successive calamities.

61. It surprised the Khawarnaq and Sudayr tribes
Like the companions of the day of the elevated places and trench.

62. It picked off the Abbasids distinctively
However much equipment and number they accumulated.

63. So it came upon the Saffah, Mansur, Mahdi, Hadi and every rightly-guided one.
It raided the forbearing and foolish equally, sparing

64. No father or newborn child of theirs.
Such is the days' way with their sons,

65. Each empowered, with respite and harvest.
It tore down the Banu Sasan and their kingdom,

66. Destroying the people's system by scattering.
As if they did not shine white pearls

67. In noble rain, nor clouds of lances.
Many a year, its bounties rained on them

68. With clouds of generosity and oceans of judiciousness.
Son of Ala and brother of battled kings.

69. It dragged him from his doors and palaces
And seized his banded crown.

70. Within it are gardens like gardens he settled
If only this world were the lasting abode.

71. With a stream flowing, a harmony bending branch,
Warbling birdsong,

72. And at his hands every groomed horse
To please in aiming and climbing.

73. Dunes of sand, also surging seas,
Branches of acacia, also twisting smoke columns.

74. And when his bowels thirsted for rain’s coolness,
The sweetness of taste raised him.

75. So it was as if it never provided him
A settled life, nor witnessed visiting delegations.

76. Nay, his ministers did not tarry with him
To solve knotty problems and contracts.

77. And the earth dances with steeds
Like how ship hulls dance with lightning.

78. It erased his beauty and the sign of his justice
With cuts of fragmentation and dispersal.

79. He may still exist somewhere, unaware of his value,
A refuge for the expelled, pressed juice of the squeezed.

80. And harbor for the hopeful’s steeds, meeting place
For spreading rumors and messages.

81. Had you witnessed his day, you'd know
No difference between plank and pillar.

82. You'd see those armies as meager
Though they packed the chests with brave warriors.

83. Had they the means to repel fate
What arms and muscles could avail?

84. With Indian blades, not one cheek of theirs
Lacks furrowing and hollowing.

85. As if each surging sweet water wave
They donned, pleated and folded.

86. But it is fate none can evade
Its surging source.

87. So go as youth went, bidding farewell
With refinements of submission and praise.

88. Long have I rebutted ignorance about you two
If only I listened to rebuttal.

89. Your burial place is watered by the downpour
Of every cloud with greening, vitalizing tears.

90. Every barren soil writhes beneath it
With buds under wreaths and contracts.

91. The cherished drops neither harmful nor vile,
Though perhaps some rain not wholesome.

92. It's as if every swaying palm tree bends its fronds
To you with the date palm's dew.

93. I scattered my tears' prose over you,
Scant consolation were it choicest verse.

94. When I pass by your tomb, my dependence
On you vexes me after your noble remains.

95. Patience and surrender, for the Almighty's will
Comes with what no soul desired.

96. My soul healed and its panic calmed
By trusting in God's pardon and oneness.

97. God's door is not locked shut
Against one seeking, nor blockaded.