1. He who built the house of life destroys it
So what living being is immortalized in it?

2. And if nations have declined before us
They are but bare souls that have returned

3. Do you not see them as if they were rocks
Blackened among us are their abrasions

4. If they were safe when they did not make us safe
Our days warred against their nights

5. And how lonely because of the absence of a companion
Whose memory kills me and gives me life

6. I remember her and tears outstrip me
As if I race against sorrow

7. O sea you set sail uncaring
She whom I was not selling to the seller

8. A jewel - my soul was the oyster
I sheltered it in me and protected it

9. I concealed it in your bosom drowned
While I weep for it on your coast

10. The scent of perfume in its tresses
And the kohl dye in its eyes

11. The wave embraced it then parted from it
From an embrace in which its soul poured

12. Woe to me from the water and the dust and from
The two contrary decrees that judged it

13. This and that killed it altered it
How can I ransom it from the two elements?