1. Time shakes the pillar of glory and literature
So beware, O brother of virtue, of its afflictions and prepare

2. It makes us drink cups until we are drunk
With the wine of sorrow, not the wine of grapes

3. O you who are deceived by his cup's sweetness
How many a nation was ruined by that sweetness

4. He is evasive while his covenant is steadfastness
Like a thread of cotton in a line of flame

5. And seeking his security while betrayal is his trait
Is like reconciling fire and firewood

6. If not for God—God forbid opposing Him
I would say time is a liar, nay the father of lies

7. And I would say, by God, there is no wisdom in its rule
Even if the strangest strangeness were to come

8. May its hands be severed, may God cast it into misery
As He cast our Shaykh Nasif into misery

9. Al-Yaziji whose virtues have spread
Among the scrolls of both non-Arabs and Arabs

10. The composer of principles and uncoverer of worries and source
Of sciences, praiseworthy in deed and title

11. It is right for us, for as long as days continue, to mourn him
A right for his merit like the right to ancestry

12. We grieve him as long as there are tears and life in us
And as long as pens flow over books

13. For how much he has guided us with a sun of his knowledge
And ideas that shone like shooting stars

14. And how he has, on the brow of time, salt
That went about it proudly like the lone camel

15. His poems have surely echoed in the horizons
And how much have instruments sung them in musical joy

16. We relay the seas of his poetry and my sorrows
And for so long has his heavy rain been relayed

17. So let no one reassure me in this age
That if I said he died, by my Lord the most eloquent of Arabs

18. I bade him farewell and tears overflowed copiously
Bidding farewell at the sea of virtue and literature

19. Oh my woe for a farewell that has no reunion
In which my heart will face greatest distress tomorrow

20. How can there be solace when no lamenting circle has wailed
Except my wailing atop the chest of the select

21. That I will console myself when the fire in my heart subsides
And patience returns like precise arrows

22. The champion who yesterday was ahead of us
And ahead of people in knowledge and seeking

23. O you planet that traveled toward the full moon in passionate zeal
Arise and see the wandering planet in the soil

24. Toward the Beloved indeed have its mounts traveled
When love of Him transcended the highest ranks

25. Your fresh branch has withered for lack of its stream
And you have sown while in hardship and fatigue

26. You have watered the land of contentment that brought together
The two best beloveds, the best son and father

27. If that expansive sea is absent, this
Is its replacement at the confluence lack nothing