1. The mansion of Humaid has no consolation for the lovesick,
Nor does it lack tears, even if it is made of blood.

2. Every year you continue to be terrified
By news of calamity, now and then.

3. Your best people have passed away except for a few.
They perished as the tips of their lances perished.

4. Thus you became like a nest whose chicks abandoned it
On the branches of withering oleander.

5. Your noble children loved each other, but they were separated,
Their group in every low valley.

6. Their deaths drew near them while their resting places grew distant
From your scented soil.

7. Each has a lonely grave in a country,
So some are far from Munjid and some from Mutahim.

8. Graves are on the edges of the frontiers as if
Their positions there are positions of stars.

9. In lofty Al-Nibaj is the grave of Muhammad,
Far from the weepers in every funeral.

10. The wind tears open for him every evening
The bosoms of clouds between dawn and dusk.

11. And two graves are atop Al-Qatul which
Were watered by the lightning of swords with blood.

12. They are my father Nasr and Qahtaba where they are,
Or are they withering and decaying?

13. And in beautiful Mosul is the atheist grave of Ahmad,
And between Ruba and Al-Qatul is the resting place of Asram.

14. How often did the outpourings of devotion seek them
Whenever it was stirred to blame by the darkness.

15. Mourners in the farthest part of Khurasan answered
The lamentations in Baghdad in murmuring song.

16. For them the sorrow after sorrow,
And passion like the burning embers.

17. Abu Ghanim, your children’s faith led them to destruction,
To hold that destruction in war is the most noble gain.

18. They went happily to meet their deaths, preserving
That advancing glory and honor.

19. They stabbed only with a sharp spear,
And struck only with a notched sword.

20. And when they saw that some of life was disgraceful to them
While death was not forbidden to them,

21. They refused to taste life and blame, which had fallen upon it,
And died an unblemished death.

22. And each was led to it by the zeal of his soul
As the commander of a tottering army.

23. Destruction took them away with the blow of a sharp sword,
The coil of an adder, and a wolf’s pounce.

24. Slaughter overtook them, and arrows
Whose arrows thickly sowed death in them.

25. You would see war did not recognize them when
It confronted their faces in the crowded fray,

26. And it did not remember being suckled by their palms
When they gave it to drink beneath the darkness of spears.

27. But the sword is more treacherous to a companion
And more ungrateful to one who enjoys the favor of a benefactor.

28. By my life, they were not the kind of souls
That harsher to them than noble acts.

29. If Nabhan had been just, it would not have sought them
Except for glory, and glory is the goal of the lover.

30. Destruction called them, destruction after destruction,
Coming in succession like the growth of a lofty palm tree.

31. Greetings to those spirits, they are
Safe from every shame and sin.

32. Time effaces them not, their bones do not decay,
Though the remains of greater bones do decay.

33. It is no wonder if the lions were brought down by
The dogs of enemies, eloquent and mute alike.

34. So the dagger of a savage gave Hamza his destruction
And the sword of the son of Muljam was the death of Ali.

35. Abu Muslim, you remained between one bidding farewell
From the family of Muzn, shedding his life blood, and one surrendering.

36. The tears of a weeper from the clan of Ghaith and Walih
Who lent them to you, or a laughing one smiling.

37. If the swords did not kill you and the wailers did not establish
Your bereavement, the edges of the twisted windpipe would.

38. Teaching every shallow-minded fool about death
With death you teach the teacher of death.

39. And your bearing the weight of armor protects its iron
Against the weakness of a body broken by iron.

40. What is new in your smiling at the dew
When the lowlands of a people darken with darkness?