1. Sleep evaded my eyelids and tossed
Restlessly upon my bed it crossed

2. So I said, as it lingered and tossed some more
Have mercy and be gentle with my state

3. It said, in your eyelids I see the rolled up
Whose unending expansion brought my decay

4. So I said, it must be life itself that assumed
I had withered, to tire my eyes in this way

5. Or did it assume that I've weakened, disabled?
So I called and it obeyed my beckoning sway

6. And if I called out, I am no believer
In a life whose afflictions make me their prey

7. And I sense it has come to blame and accuse
With "if only you had" and "why didn't you" say?

8. As is the custom of each sinner when he returns
To count your sins and transgressions and weigh

9. Disdainfully like each disbeliever when resurrected
And salvation is grasped in the answers we relay

10. You've returned to lament your perceived injustice
Though you were my fate and my book, I'd say

11. And you blame me alone for your wasted youth
Vanished into nothing! Or was it not my day?

12. You've exceeded, by God, in describing me
As confessing what would heal my wounds' decay

13. For with each adversity that visits me
You've predetermined misfortune would hold sway

14. And when sorrow captures my heart, its joy turns to dust
You've predetermined mourning would lead joy astray

15. I've come to know your fickleness' false glamour
In every plain and hill along the way

16. So I see the world through your eyes as heaven
While hellfire burns concealed down below, they say

17. I died for your sake many refined pleasures
Soared through them in meadows and valleys day after day

18. And when life rebelled and I searched for you
I found you resting in its embrace, so gay

19. I squandered on you my principles and faith
A spirit bequeathed with sins, empty, betray

20. I sacrificed my people, family and dignity
Until it withered and my legs gave way

21. So I became a fearful coward, with deep anxieties
About fate, when the winds blow fierce and fey

22. I became, in people's eyes, a mockery,
In every verse and line, the butt of gossips' play

23. I abandoned God's book, fearing the fated hour
And the coming of your Lord, that unknown day

24. And whenever I passed a verse I would hear
"You were complacent, while your end is on its way"

25. Did you ever call me to God, even once?
Or share a morsel of my torment's fray?

26. I tended your wound but found none grateful
To bestow a favor or heal my decay

27. You surrendered my body to aging, and never considered
My soul might be saved if you were pleased to stay

28. You complained without cause, so pardon and let go
My spirit, enough! No more wailing, I pray

29. Gone is my longing for sweet younger years
When I see them murky like stars in disarray

30. To death I yearn, and perhaps in parting
We'll find relief, so echo my prayers, I say

31. A life is not made wretched by its length
But by the wisdom of the Merciful at play