1. Why do I see the forest turn away from the face of spring?
Why does the full moon wander from its mansion?

2. Why is the sea of dew stagnant, its waves silent,
No longer calling out its generosity or hope?

3. Why is the wind of death still when it has dashed
That mighty mountain to pieces with death?

4. Life itself has died at the death that knows no life.
The reliever of distress, who pleaded in supplication, has departed.

5. How lonesome the land has become without Ahmed,
And how barren after his departure.

6. None has been more woeful in calamity,
More deprived by loss, swifter to find fault among the people.

7. He let flow tears and ignited in the ribs a heartache.
He sent away grief and lit up sorrow flaming.

8. He split open the liver of each officer whose strength he sapped,
And clothed the times anew in loss after finery.

9. O Fate! You have removed from us one whose ransom
Would have been all of us, had he but one debtor.

10. You have orphaned yourself, so see what you have become without him -
Blind, feeble Fate, complaining of paralysis!

11. You took him from us, though the voice of the state proclaims:
We are all downcast with shame before him.

12. I die among you alone, with none to join me,
Grieving or fearing for me in death.

13. Where are they who owe their lives to me? Is there no man
Who, if he spoke one word of ransom, would act?

14. They owe me their lives, yet none shares death with me,
No friend joins me in my grave.

15. Vain imaginings! None is left but my soul which has kept faith with me
On the day its pledge fell due.

16. Those show-offs! Whenever the death of pretense was recalled,
It was as if their pretentious selves had never existed.

17. Had we responded, we would have said: “To kill ourselves for you
Would be easy, but we forget what we have done.”

18. We do not face you out of misfortune through him,
While patience hopes through you for the relief of transport.

19. Armies of grief appeared to me when I looked
Upon the patience of the weak-armed, those who falter.

20. When evening came, I feared them, deriving no benefit
As a drowning man fears the surge of rising floodwaters.

21. Only a fool with a soul to lose
Would clash with the mountain as if it were a flask.

22. I beg God’s forgiveness! Nothing thwarts
The power of God, so cease your proverbs.

23. Surely happiness transcends custom?
Have you not seen Sa’d Abdullah - what he has done?

24. They cried out to him as king in a city
While all unknowing he was in another, asking nothing.

25. And obedience to him was cast into people’s hearts
So no man disobeyed him in his commands.

26. Who would oppose or evade obeying
A command from God descended into His appointed ruler?

27. Never have the people, since first they were,
Agreed about a ruler as they agreed on you.

28. Even the rival overlooked his own designs,
As if, were he given it, he would not accept the rule.

29. This is the happiness not of one who dares
And seeks the throne, whether he wins or dies.

30. A mighty rule unasked for, everything
Coming freely, nothing sought.

31. You were aided as the Prophet said, and whoever
Seeks aid, that aids him to what he attained unasked.

32. So rejoice in an unfailing rule, and God through it
Is the helper against what is past or is to come.

33. His care for you was not in vain,
But that you might walk justly, as He was just.

34. In the true dream which came to you lies proof
You follow in it the footsteps of the messengers.

35. In the pure white hands that nothing can stain,
Thanks be to God, no swerving and no bent.

36. O You, the supported king, before whom
Awe goes out spreading fear through every district!

37. None who was shielded by you in the world has died,
For you stand by the rule arranging and dismissing.

38. Your Lord brought you untroubled rule by His choice,
Saying to the seeker of rule other than you: No!

39. May the rule please you which the Lord of the Throne girded,
Beyond all others for you, and the good fortune now perfected.

40. So for fear he made safety, for weeping laughter,
For the desolation of earth companionship, and for misery felicity.

41. He whose rule lasts because God forgives him -
Yours is a rule from His pardon made.