1. Alas for this world we desire,
It has failed and failed those who aspired to it.

2. When have I become aware after being deceived by its slumber,
That my awareness did not lead to any wisdom.

3. Ask the days what they did to Chosroes,
Caesar and statues and their inhabitants.

4. Did it not invite them to death smoothly?
It did not spare the wise or the foolish.

5. It approached the lords with misfortunes,
Silencing them and humiliating the honorable.

6. If this world was sold for a penny,
The exalted would refuse to buy it.

7. It killed its own children and violated
The sanctuary of its builder and inhabitants.

8. Surely I said, there is nothing in it, as if
I spoke of it directly from its mouth.

9. And what shocked us is a sun that shone upon it
With the dust of hands burying it.

10. It passed away and the maids rejoiced
And adorned the gardens to shine in it.

11. By God, nothing was written for it
Except good deeds by the hands of its writers.

12. It changed its conditions other than the nights
And the pillows returned their users.

13. So O earth, boast as much as you wish of wonder
About it, and imagine wonder and stray.

14. For the best of creatures of veils has inhabited you
Bestow the gnostics so recognize it.

15. If biers could walk in procession with biers
Some would be carrying them.

16. Chastity died when she died
And despair became a sign of her devotees.

17. It quenched the thirst of a grave she stayed in
Like the generosity of her father's hand.