1. She who bore him laments his loss—
Is the grieving mother to blame for weeping?

2. All night long the sleepless one called out,
As daybreak rent the cloak of night.

3. Like a drowning man crying for rescue
After feebleness overcame his body.

4. Darkness engulfed him, fold on fold,
Veiling the starry hosts of heaven,

5. Stifling vision, till the eye could scarce
Discern a finger raised against that murk.

6. O stillness of the night, how you stirred
Yearning and wakefulness ‘mid the thickets,

7. And voices chanting the call to prayer,
Melodious, echoes linking the refrain,

8. Like tidings hailing the morn’s birth,
Or glorifying the death of gloaming’s pall.

9. So dawn’s arising was like a king who brings
Gladness where sadness shrouded the seer,

10. Falsehood foundered when truth shone forth
At daybreak’s advent, dispelling the dark.

11. Why does the star’s eye grow dim whenever
Dawn reveals itself, sunlight bursts forth?

12. Like a maiden who meets her lover’s gaze
Steadfastly, then drops her eyes in modesty.

13. The king of light erased the script
Of night, though darkness was writ large.

14. His banners were unfurled, red stains
On every horizon, distant or near.

15. The more you look, the fairer it seems,
Ever fresher, more limpid and bright.

16. It led me, depicted on the tablet of space
By the Creator of all the worlds.

17. The sky and the earth are its arena,
The crimson horizon its open pavilion.

18. The morning star is its vanguard
And the rising sun its arriving retinue.