1. The sky of your world is a mirage of illusion,
And its civilization soon turns into ruins.

2. You are but a carcass surrounded
By packs of wolves or hyenas sitting.

3. And how often has hunger led the black wolves
To attack you with unabating teeth.

4. You lurked at the bends of the paths
As they passed by in clouds of dust.

5. You mocked them at farewell
With glances of disdain for the dead beloved.

6. They stayed but the company of the present did not please you,
They turned away but their absence did not dishearten you.

7. You lead the children to death like a commander
Who sees his troops as insignificant insects.

8. He saw war as his empire and safety
Though his armies warned of decay.

9. Were it not for the delusions in your essence
Your children would not have tasted sorrow’s honey.

10. You would not have been a spectacle of temptations for the blind
Nor an arena of competition for the crippled.

11. Nor would the youth’s opinion go astray in their prime
Nor would they lose opportunities once open.

12. Nor would the gravedigger, after building
The grave with his hands, calculate any reckoning.

13. They say each friend and companion mourn me.
But I am only fulfilling the rights of my companions.

14. I rewarded them with my tears and when the days passed
I made the eyes of poetry my reward.

15. It is enough that the timbers of the pillars are the pulpit of the preacher
And that those leaning on them are the tongue of righteousness.

16. I called you, O Jacob, from the house of affliction
And had it not been for death, you would not have answered my call.

17. I remind you of this world and how
It always left a trace of honey in you.

18. Yesterday we carried the cave while it was flourishing
And we recited the Opening Chapter after the Chapter.

19. And still this world does not cease, though its lifetime is short,
To be a tongue of reward or a tongue of punishment.

20. In the path of knowledge alone, fifty arguments
Passed between teaching and students.

21. You crossed its long nights and days
With hopes of a thirsty soul seeking perfection.

22. God wanted you to receive a message
So you protected it from frivolity and lies.

23. You did not take it as a means of hatred and passion
Nor an arena of nonsense, marketplace of insults.

24. We walked in its light of knowledge and clarity
Only illuminating the rays of the falling star.

25. Through it we lived two generations in which you stood
A teacher of youth or an imam of youth.

26. Your messages are of the forgiveness of speech as if
They are commentaries by brilliant insights in the Chapter of the Mount.

27. With it neither the son of Tamimah contents himself with food
Nor the son of Khadhab contents himself with food.

28. It has accessible highs of eloquence which stopped fancy
From what it has of hills and plateaus.

29. You have never walked crookedly between East and West
As they say in proverbs, the gait of the crow.

30. So I have not seen anyone’s transmitted reputation as immaculate
If transmission brands men with flaws.

31. And how much secret talk has the transmitter arabized
Yet he did not refute it for a name or lineage!

32. You surpassed eloquence with the goodness of others
By God, its platforms did not narrow with the narrowness of the gate.

33. And Greek, Persian, and Roman drew near
And lodged in its spacious courtyard.

34. You endured the noble knowledge as if it is
The reality of God’s oneness and you are its people.

35. And you entered the arena of politics an outstanding horseman
While every steed in politics is unruly.

36. We were a leopard in thickets and time continued with us
Until it exposed every single thicket.

37. It saw the great revolution so it asked its shepherd
To destroy the shackles and unleash the necks.

38. The Orient is nothing but a family or a clan
That gathers its children at every affliction.

39. Peace unto the Sheikh of Sheikhs and mercy
That flows from the edges of every cloud,

40. And whiffs of basil that spreads fragrance
Over goodnesses in the thickets - generous, fresh.

41. As for remembrance - even if we do not forget your era an instant -
And longing - even if we do not think of return.

42. And woe to the biers! Did decay expose to affliction
Your forehead or did they cover it with a veil?

43. And did they protect water that was as though
It were the modesty of a maiden in her prayer - diffident?

44. Oh what a life that left none but a questioner -
Was it life or the burrow of a creeping insect?

45. Where is the hand whose fingers
Were shepherding something lost or shepherding a forest?

46. My anguish for morals in the corner of a temple
With the belly of the ground - the landmarks have perished.

47. We live and pass in torture like pleasure
From life or in pleasure like torture.

48. We are lost in dreams in every doctrine
Yet when we finished they were interpreted as lost.

49. And each dear lifetime, however long,
Is dust - the lifetime of death and the son of dust.