1. Marvel at a caravan whose riders are mankind
Good and evil, life and death

2. Its people were given a choice between two companions
And the company of both, they cannot evade

3. Most of them chose evil, and evil
Is the door they surrendered to, saying it was home

4. While good is a door for those who came to it
Only as guests, whose gifts they did not covet

5. And the company of people to life is for days
While the company of death, time cannot limit

6. And death in its justice, when it comes
Announces what it brings, so fate is known

7. Either heavenly bliss, everlasting
Or hellish torment, intensified within

8. But it fills ears falsely, not eyes
With illusion, for that is its wont

9. Except for hands, most hostile to its opponent, glut
Outstretched, though empty, for that is their nature

10. Thinking life fulfilled its promise
While it denies that, if you ask silence

11. For life only promises to fill
Hell, whose heat they cannot flee

12. Let no living think one who died
Is absent, but a neighbor without voice

13. So restrain your tears, o you whose family
Or companions or dreams death took away

14. For today or tomorrow, you will meet them
Even if hatred for them fills your heart

15. A grudge you bore all your life remains
While qualities and titles evade you

16. And death in its fairness makes up
For every unjust who attacked your name

17. Until when its remnants are enriched
It becomes food for dogs which by nature attack

18. Once slaves for it, now freeing mankind
Imprisoning jinn, if any house stood

19. Cursing oil residue with no intent
That settled around homes, their food crumbs

20. So by bribery it gained authority, false
Over the heads of the hungry, its sword rusty

21. You came saying it got him
The right of speech, your right is silence

22. And you came saying death gave you
The right of speech, its action wiser, silence

23. Death is free and refuses the company of slaves
While you are slave to clay, your senses dead

24. Just as you lived the daughter of clay lived
Worshipping a Lord whose rule is tyranny

25. Would there be any good for a slave among peers?
If so, the palm trees would not delay their fruiting

26. It left you in a body whose limits are touch
Smell, taste, sight, hearing

27. Under it the earth, over it the wind
Around it water, rocks, and twisted roads

28. In its eye lewdness, in its mouth bitterness
In its nose stench, in its ear nonsense

29. Abandonment of its companion with ten
Most harmful of which is its water and clay

30. And sickness, frailty, worries, hunger
Grey hair, wounds, exhaustion, and enslavement

31. And when in the evening you are carried on palms
Having done nothing but what trees do

32. Leaving your humiliation tossed on a bier
Drifting in its mire as if it were a raft

33. While people around elevate its status
As if it were a king underneath whom lies a crown!

34. You will discern the difference between servitude and freedom
And be astounded that your mother and daughter cried for you

35. When you were a slave but became affiliated
Like the free when freed, so death came to him

36. Is the company of the Prophet's companions better or
Remaining the slave of a slave, his god a statue?!

37. You dreamed of freedom all your life
While death grants it, not your clay below

38. Something of doubt still remains in your soul
Like your kind, wisdom may elude you

39. So ask it about a tree with no shade
Whose existence makes reason doubt it sprouted

40. If you contemplate it, you say right away
It is as if its branches were cut by an axe

41. That is what life does, not death
So whoever laments it is confused

42. Birth then childhood then understanding
Then separation, beyond which is no death

43. Childhood then birth then understanding
Then a lump beyond which is no dispersal

44. Cold then warmth then heating then igniting
Then a flame, then blaze, its heat intense

45. Burning then stopping then halting then extinguishing
Then pause until the house is prepared

46. So it is not justice to blame it for loss
Nor is its news misguidance or confusion

47. The origin is it and all that followed branched
Is there misguidance in returning to an origin that did not disappear?!

48. Death is not shattering but victory
Over a captive whose holiday is Saturday

49. Indeed, it is your sword which if brandished
Calves, snakes, and spiders will flee you

50. And you, who accompanied death for days
And associated with it unlike any sister

51. I see you have come to fear death while good
Is innate and evident in your actions

52. So proceed without hesitation towards what
None feared but the wicked, their god a statue

53. I was like you when my soul allowed
What pleased it, so I chose it and nothing burned me

54. So it roused all its slaves
But I did not compromise my spring

55. Thank God you were placed in a group
That despite its plotting, death leads