1. Does my lamentation please you, O Time?
Or have you grown fond of my weeping?

2. Each day you inflict hardship upon me,
Never a day of ease or comfort.

3. You remain charging at the lofty cedars,
Or amassing an army of misfortunes,

4. Until you pierced the heart of my soul suddenly,
And struck me with a deafening calamity.

5. You left me no skin, though I thought myself
Cunning and thick-skinned against every adversity.

6. One whose hearing is soothed by melody -
how the vicissitudes of fate pelted his eyes with misery!

7. It blamed me and lodged rancor in its chest,
While the earth closes in upon my entrails.

8. Would my sorrow be immoral if I were steadfast?
I would not mix my tears with my weeping.

9. My son, if permanence were stripped from man,
I would eagerly doff my existence for you.

10. Slumber has filled you with inertness instead of dignity.
Your eyes have lost the delight of sleep.

11. A malady has migrated in you, tracking me,
In my bowels, to kill the disease.

12. I yearn for you at all times, seeking
The moment I meet you, though no time for meeting remains.

13. And if you are veiled from my sight into the earth,
You are within my heart.

14. Memory has brought you near, though time has taken you far.
My soul ransoms you from a near farewell.

15. Were I to die of my sorrow for you, it would be no wonder,
But wondrous is my remaining alive.

16. Still a grave that clasps your body with its soil
Is redolent with the fragrances of dew.

17. And if, where the passing days have claimed you,
You refuse to be hailed by throngs of tempest,

18. My tears, like the south rain that breathes through the ridges,
Stream to you over the distances.