1. I lament—oh if only my poetry knew who will lament me
Has that time come or does it yet remain?

2. All are captives of death, none can ransom himself
So the living are accounted dead though unburied

3. Say to him who strayed, boastful in his world
Your boasting is lost between water and clay

4. If you examine the graves and ponder
There you see the crowns of sultans

5. Woe to him who in this life takes great risks
For it is weaker than flowers in gardens

6. We wake and sleep in this life risking all
For no day or night brings safety

7. My heart is weary of a life devoid of beauty
Save what is marred by twisting and perversion

8. A heart that saw Damascus as its home
And endured India and China

9. Each day an unforeseen affliction
And anguish at a separation unimagined

10. Time left no loved one for us
Only traces that make me weep

11. My craving for that moon extinguished
Whose beauty the earth enshrouded, would that it remain as Ursa Minor

12. After him our sights darkened and saw
The September sun in it a December night

13. Woe! In the vicissitudes of fate, what wonders!
While you search them unauthorized

14. It gives and withholds, no thanks to the generous
Or excuse to the miser, no heeding laws

15. What sowers of corruption in religion and world
Ruled with might, fit for neither world nor faith

16. And died whom the world wished safety
And lived whom the gales wished dead

17. Such is the decree of Him whose mighty Throne
Disposes all affairs between the K and the N

18. So show patience or if you wish then anguish
If you can repel affliction and balance the scales