1. In the diwan are gazelles
Whose sick eyes have shed tears.

2. Maidens of the palace chambers,
When did you last close your eyes in slumber?

3. You have never known, I swear,
A life of ease or comfort.

4. You have not enjoyed since you were
The pleasures of life and luxury.

5. You refer the course of events
To a tyrant, unjust and cruel,

6. Whose word no man accepts.
When death has singled out one of them

7. It quickens the dying pulses;
And if to another it portioned out

8. Sustenance, it rendered it null.
Had it not been that the weak and helpless

9. Prey on each other for subsistence,
Then the earth would have been filled

10. With their weeping, O Muslim folk!