1. I grew weary of the vicissitudes of youth upon my life,
So I wandered, unable to stand firm.

2. I see the lot of vulgar souls brought low,
While the lot of the noble soul does not favor.

3. So I fear in my soul the deception of fate,
For I know that fate has much turmoil.

4. I see the universe as a Quran sent down from God
Onto the spirit and events – lessons of signs.

5. And I read from the signs of misery some lines
Inscribed on the pages of the universe.

6. So there is a line of the most wretched, worn down
Naked in the biting air, barefoot.

7. And a line of my days crying out in pain
From misery, ever depressed.

8. And a line of orphans, overwhelmed by exhaustion,
Tripped by the hand of stumbling on the edge of affliction.

9. And a line of elders, white-haired like the waning moon –
And is their white hair anything but a sign of death?

10. And a line of scorned outcasts, humiliated,
Branded with disgrace and setbacks.

11. And above them a line of all mankind,
Sinners, by the life of truth, atop sinners!

12. Sinners whom a seer sees in the dark of night
A stain upon their line, and the darkness like darknesses.

13. Was this universe an unsheathed sword
Afflicting souls and bodies?

14. Was this universe a cruel whip
Lashing the children of man for years?

15. For from six came every ailment
To a year came every torment.

16. I grew weary, though I am but twenty pilgrimages old,
Of ceaseless, blazing tribulations.

17. I send my eyes roaming like the peering scout,
And my eyes return, their gaze downcast.

18. Blessed is the Lord of the Throne! I have touched with a skeptic—
I try to obscure the truth with doubts.

19. But my conscience whispers remorsefully
To my heart or inspires it to lament.

20. So it pours from the crucible of truth a stream
And blooms in the meadow of propriety, flowers

21. That open, from the intensity of poetry, mature,
A draft whose hospitality enchants the breeze.

22. The days bear it like melodies
Conversing above the meadow with melodies.

23. Thus was poetry delicate mechanisms
Upon images of creativity, folded.

24. I was tasked with it as a child, and I would forge it
Into ingots purified with a touchstone.

25. And compose it into an orderly, coherent strand,
Refined, solidly strung pearls.

26. And a rhyme I made represent Joseph
In its blessings and beauty of qualities.

27. I draped over it from my passions scarves
And crowned it however I wished from my dangers.

28. Yet a people cast it into the gloom of their ignorance—
And how much vermin is in that gloom!

29. I made them drink a poisonous drought,
And I stabbed them with the blade of my spear.

30. And I said to them: Whoever lives without benefiting his people,
I will send against him an army of words.

31. Thus is the scripture of the universe preaching and wisdom,
Deterrence, rebuke, and reprimand of the wicked.

32. If the readers had concluded from it with belief,
Upon them would be the blessing of conclusions.