1. O grave, bury me, answer me
What have you done with my corpse?

2. What have you done with knowledge?
And what have you done with art?

3. And what have you done with the thought
Of my exuberant youth and mind?

4. You have folded the best reward
For the circumambulators and the corner!

5. Every day there is an elegy
For a friend or an edifice

6. That my poetry almost
Cries for my weakness and frailty

7. It is but a part of me
And I am but a part of it

8. The meter is from the pulse of my heart
And the verse from the water of my eyelids

9. O death, go slowly,
You have mixed flour with flour!

10. People are but bleating sheep
Going after other bleating sheep

11. So neither iron remains
Nor caution of use

12. And every shining mind
Fades out and withers away

13. Were a branch to incline
Complaining of time to another branch

14. Woe to it! We sometimes console
And sometimes congratulate!

15. From a wedding gathering
To a funeral gathering

16. One nourishes hopes
While time ruins and destroys

17. How I wished, but
What did wishing avail?

18. Let me turn my eyes
In the darkness of night, let me

19. Confused, clapping my palms
Sorrowing and shaving my years

20. Time has once betrayed me
Would that it had not betrayed me!

21. Whenever a bier passed by
Or news buzzed in my ear

22. My heart would fly away
Had there been no remainder to restrain me

23. Were it not for piety, I would not have found it
Beside me or find me

24. They said you found elegy
I said yes, and

25. The tears of my eyes are my rhymes
And the sigh of passion is my tune

26. Teach me to treat a saddened one
For grief is erased by grief

27. Or quenched by shedding tears
For one whose plight is like mine

28. Where has the genius gone?
O grave, bury me, answer me

29. Does every rising moon
Get shot by a wind to decay?

30. Leaving the earth distraught
A plain billowing with sorrow

31. While many a fragrant flower
Blooms with the spirits of Eden

32. As if its hues were bestowed
By the essence of beauty

33. Its green charm has bent
Its branches with supple grace

34. Nurtured by the rain of dawn at times
And the clouds of drizzle at times

35. The breeze blows by gently
In fear and softness

36. As if it were a mother's mouth
Passing by the cheek of her son

37. The bees sipping its nectar
And buzzing in tune

38. Reaping without ever knowing
That decay will someday reap it

39. Poisons have overwhelmed it
Hot like the breaths of jinn

40. Leaving it debris
Drier than tinder

41. While time, the companion, is prone
To betray and cheat me

42. O grave, bury me, answer me
And have mercy on my remaining years

43. Your silence has frightened me
Do not, by your right, frighten me

44. For in you I have spent serene times
Of every eloquence and expression

45. In you is poetry, pure
Of every storytelling and allurement

46. As if it were smiles
Reuniting after separation

47. Or a whiff from ‘Jamil'
Floating around the dreams of ‘Buthaina'

48. Or the foam from honey
Pouring from the top of the jar

49. What subtle humor it contains
Nearly hidden from all guesses!

50. Egyptian, excelling
In the taste of the refined connoisseur

51. Had you known my corpse
You would have said: Give me more, give me more!

52. Grammar that makes Kisa'i split
And looks down on Ibn Jinni

53. And if a debate were stirred
You would have seen him the best of his time

54. Knowledge is his sharpest weapon
And his surest shield

55. He used to be huge, bulky
Appearing like an erect fortress

56. Flesh soft and plump
With the softness of cotton

57. And a chest spacious and serene
That never swelled with anger

58. In his frowning face is a beauty
From his tranquil soul

59. He once visited me
On a hot and muggy day

60. Bringing comfort by which
Sorrow abated after distress

61. The talk overflowed, fresh
Sweet, and he never belittled me

62. Wit from him
And anecdote from me

63. In the ear coffee of generosity
And in the palm coffee beans

64. I quench and he quenches poetic meters
Like pearls, measure for measure

65. O a gathering that restored fervor
And kindled the heart and delighted it

66. Youth is gone and we returned from it
With a losing deal

67. My comrade, peace and light
To your tranquil heart

68. You left family and home
For the best family and home

69. The rhymes bend their necks to you
When bending them to rhyme