1. The height of every accomplished man is to bow to the decree of Allah and fate,
And to meet the turns of time however they flow,

2. With composure in the tears of the eyes and morals.
And to see others as himself except in form,

3. So I see no mourner for a soul alone,
Except he mourns, if we understand, for all mankind.

4. Life is but a procession escorting each of our dead,
And for the first of us it is the span of this life.

5. And for death to be absent at its watering places,
Though often a delay is followed by a firm taking.

6. He who grants it a day in its battles,
Has referred himself to its other days.

7. Time has not ceased to be deadly in its arenas,
Be they days white or nights dark.

8. It denied doubt of death and admonished and recompensed,
Guiding one who was deluded by the world.

9. It makes people differ in their desires when alive,
And death unites all that is scattered.

10. And it may drive one into the cunning of his enemy,
And had he known he would have been purely untroubled.

11. And he may seek victory over his foes,
While he is between the fangs of death and victory.

12. How often has the bow of the feeble drawn back,
And the archer taken away the determination of the bowstring and the arrow.

13. And tears wash away that which is painful in the heart,
As the rain makes the dust of the earth disappear.

14. If the downpour were just to a tear it would have
Knowledge of a sea of tears endless.

15. Or if the fire of Abraham saw his death,
It would become a raging inferno from the burning embers.

16. Loss lost when it took away his mind,
Among the writers of prose and verse.

17. By his brilliance the blind can almost see him,
And his eloquence that heals all distress.

18. After the wind of eloquence died down,
His compositions became conspicuously lucid.

19. A phrase whose rhyme shows no imbalance,
Like justice it doubts not excess or dearth.

20. You will meet no unsuitable place in it,
As if it came to match the meaning.

21. Eloquent speech wept for him as was his due,
The weeping of all words that came from harm.

22. O traveller, pens complained of his absence,
And after you none of them remains unbroken.

23. They set forth among the eloquent of the age empty,
Without you they do not shine or illuminate.

24. To you belongs your right without injustice or excess,
None deny the sun but the blind.

25. If critics blame you for haste,
Only the fruitful tree is stoned.

26. And that which is burdensome in the full moon may be blamed,
But flaws do not take the essence of beauty from the moon.

27. To you my greetings with their gentleness,
Like the magic of your words or the breeze at dawn.

28. Go to you the peace of Allah from a man,
Past his prime but lasting in effect.