1. They buried the most virtuous man
And put the most righteous in the soil

2. They left no trace of generosity
On the face of the earth, nor consent

3. They took away the laughing departed one and cast
Him into a slight, reddish pit

4. So who will help preserve
Its eloquence, and the non-Arab’s?

5. Egypt has lost its editor
And his place remains vacant

6. Whoever sees the Fustat weep
With abundant tears

7. Did not the soil walk arrogantly over it
While its feet walked humbly?

8. So Ali dug up its places
Studying and revealing the hidden

9. And were it not for his effort, forms would have been concealed
So we would not see you, nor you us

10. The arts were corrupted when he took over
So they found no supporter or guardian

11. Ask the relics who walks exalting them
And returns preserving them secretly

12. And places them on shelves like a jeweler
Arranging them in his jewelry caskets

13. Neither the uncultured free man was ignorant of them
Nor the imitator and the claimant

14. A young man who shunned the ways of life
And protected the water of life from filth

15. A soul who refused in an age when
Its people could not find fathers

16. He was accustomed to people seeing him as a leader
And not seeing him as the lowly tail

17. I found that knowledge does not build souls
Nor avail from morals anything

18. And I did not see in weapons a more misguided limit
Than morals if accompanied by stupidity

19. They are like a sword - injustice does not halve it, it corrupts you
And take it complete and sound

20. A small pond that irrigates homelands best
Even if roar never fills from it

21. And streams may come humbly
With what the coming torrent may fail to bring

22. The life of a teacher has passed and it was
A lamp that amazes the one who walks at night and the resident

23. It preceded those seeking its example
And went with its light, loved by boys

24. It took from a brilliant dazzling one
And who can replace the brilliant teacher?

25. Though there is a teacher you meet rude
Hard-hearted or hot-tempered stupid

26. If the young ones sharpen swords for it
From birth, it returns them blunt

27. If the teacher is guided, so is the path
And if he strays, it becomes idolatrous

28. And many teachers who finished and passed
To freedom straightforwardly guided

29. They Shone a light in the darkness of the world and were
For the tyrants' fire, infernos

30. I was awake and did not forget the daughters of the owl
That fell upon the rain-washed weeping

31. She wept and sighed so I feared evil
And before me went the ingenious imagination

32. I turned my thoughts to it and for me
It was misguidance that I turned my conjectures to it

33. She claimed the unseen is behind the tongue of a bird
I was ignorant of its tongue so claimed the unseen

34. A people attained the unseen from birds
And owls became prophets between them

35. When it sang to them they found a mark
On its mouth and the snake of Abū Jahl

36. The raven threw stones at Sheikh Nūḥ before me
And pulled from him a bunch of feathers

37. Every flesh was saved from its tearing
And its meat was for them inauspicious

38. I slept but did not find slumber until
I rubbed my eyelid on the pillow

39. So I said a warner and true tidings
And truth that did not surprise suddenly my hearing

40. But the one who made the desolate places weep
Is the passing of Khalīl, his death agonized me

41. Whoever is devastated by the passing of a wondrous sea
Finds the injustice of demise wondrous

42. When one's friends stretch long
The bereavements cannot be counted

43. My brother, death turned to you
So bring your sweet, delightful talk

44. Whenever the fate slept, I did not lack
A companion in cemeteries, or a survivor

45. Who reminds me of intimate companionship
There he spent the night or was alone and loyal

46. I adjure you by death and it is truth
Was not worldly life transient and futile?

47. I knew the meaning of death after the word
Speak and reveal the hidden meaning

48. From life, death came to you, so look -
Would you die if you did not wear the garment of life?

49. And things have opposites -
When you are patient with them long they change

50. And the return of stars to stillness
From spinning that folds them

51. So inform me of those who passed - I
Tightened the saddlebags waiting for those leaving

52. Describe for me a house they were carried to
Which they did not see the path to nor the camel

53. And how poverty came to one wealthy
And how one poor sheltered with it, wealthy

54. They wore different clothes for it
But only accepted the dress of detachment

55. It was the same whether one greeted by day
Or one the Jews threw to it by night

56. One whose life echo and hunger severed
Or one that passed by satisfied and sated

57. And a dead over whom the world roared
And another not felt the slightest mourned