1. A heart afflicted, its passion aflame
An eye called a flash of lightning, thunderous and loud

2. A body which sadness made bare like an open plain
Became like a wire in war snaking about

3. Lying prostrate on the bed of grief, ceaselessly suffering
My liver burned, and my eyelid shed tears

4. My ribs almost cracked, and my sigh
Nearly carried my soul to my nostrils

5. Hardships have sculpted creatures out of me
And my pact with them dates back before those who worship

6. I used to be a man, steadfast against every misfortune
Yet now, even the most patient of enemies perplex me

7. Everyone has a master they emulate
And I am the master of those bereaved and woeful

8. It is strange that I appear smiling
When only weeping and anguish delight me

9. If only when my years advanced and my mouth
Laughed, it appeared like the stab of a spear

10. Sorrows have become sweet to me because they
Are now my custom, as grief is made new

11. People and sanity have abandoned me
And I know not where my utterances flow

12. Various woes have gathered into one calamity for me
And many griefs have accumulated, beyond counting

13. With the succession of days, scenes of sorrow are mine
And in each day, grief has a spectacle for me

14. As if the nights demanded vengeance from me
And attained it wherever they found me

15. If this grief remains with me a little longer
I will perish with the lost one, wherever one perishes

16. Alas! No grief is like my grief, for I rise in it
Senseless, and sit senseless

17. O Bakr, the first to lament the perfect one of virtue
Pure, chaste, of honored lineage

18. A noble woman of a people in whom is no flaw
Sanctified by reputation, glory, and prestige

19. A steed whose character was adorned by the splendor of life
Yet she was frozen in calamities

20. A full moon which the star wished to eclipse with its setting
Setting in deference to her and in homage

21. She slept satiated while her neighbors
In their lives, enjoyed ease and plenty

22. Barren of scandal, fertile of praise
Foremost in good deeds by her preference and hand

23. Upholder of the true religion, trusting and dependent on it
As she professed and leaned upon it

24. She used to fear for me before losing me
And pray that I remain for my children and miss them

25. She wore the gray hair of time since she wore me
The water was never murky, nor life gloomy

26. My days with her were verdant, my promises to her sincere
My dream with her ripe, my cheek delicate

27. When the first to lament her cried, it was as if
For Kab bin Zuhair I moaned, distraught over her loss

28. No mother ostrich has harbored an unhatched egg
And remained at the Zand valley, grazing and quenching thirst

29. Until the spittle of the sun trickled over it
And the time came for the dappled chick to emerge

30. She circled below it, inhaling the flowers below it
And glancing here and there, wavering

31. When she came below the nest and turned around
To a hunter approaching stealthily to pounce

32. She was not alerted until his blood poured
As she clawed and pecked him viciously

33. Then she did not stop circling his nest
Raising her head to the sky, resilient

34. When night came, she began tracing his shape
Sinking down for a while, then rising in alarm

35. More intensely than I lamented the day the funeral proceeded
To a grave dug in soft soil

36. A neighbor to a people without any connection between them
With no roots in the lifeless soil

37. They say to me, “How blessed is Thursday!”
For the buyer, blissful and nothing is more blissful

38. If Thursday passes me by, and its night
My drink will be sweet and refreshing

39. If a funeral passes over the necks
I will be confounded whether to grieve or moan

40. If my eye sees a stranger, and Hamza
And his brothers around me, lamenting

41. They say, “Tell us, after our mother
Who will we resort to, and make our destination?”

42. I exert my soul to mourn with them out of gloom
While they, in souls, are more exerting in gloom

43. I say to them, “Life is an appetite
But it inevitably ends with the passing days”

44. “Everything has its time, so it has passed on
And there is no escape from its appointed day”

45. “Wealth, family, and homes are only illusions
And the house is only what its builder made lasting”

46. “Exercise patience, for patience is a garment
Most splendid, wherever it is found”

47. “Your mother is watered in her grave each hour
By the gentle rain of late nights, clouded”

48. “May Allah bestow prayers upon her after Muhammad
For the best prayer is that in which Muhammad was specified”