1. Wrap me in blame and unfold me,
Let passion reach where you cannot reach me,

2. An ardor has possessed me, long yet brief,
Wherein censure falls short of curbing me,

3. How is it my eyes did not turn white with grief
When they have become without a loved one,

4. Since the voice of bereavement talked in my hearing
I have left it screaming in the depths of my molars,

5. And I have bitten my fingers in fury but
The stricken gains nothing from biting fingers,

6. So excuse me if I have tied up my heart
With my hands and folded myself from what has pierced me,

7. My heart has flown away in fright of my shock
So it persists fluttering,

8. Stop blaming my molars’ depths
With the ardors’ wounds that have sufficed me,

9. Where is my patience to consent and appease?
My patience and consent today are dead,

10. I, my blamers, know my own state,
So excuse me, whether I live or excuse me,

11. Comfort me with the coolness of my soul, else
With what then can you comfort me?

12. Bring him today closer to me above the soil
Or bring me closer under the soil to him,

13. Bury me then in his grave, else
Take me in my grave and bury me,

14. And next to my innermost self place him
Or next to his body place me,

15. For my life and his death are incompatible,
I could not manage that they come together,

16. But I imagined him alive and me dead
Or both of us alike held in two pits

17. I did not part from him a stranger but
He is my soul and I parted from my body

18. We had spread affection between us for ages
But time has folded it—would that it folded me!

19. Shut my eyes for as long as I live in fury
For after consent—upon whom do you open them?

20. And make my sighs burrow into my ribs’ hollows—
For whose affection do you make clear my loves?

21. And time’s afflictions without you are my adversary,
So for you today I have uncovered my eyes,

22. Events have stripped me of my coat of mail,
With whom then can I beware the sparks of events?

23. For so long have I bent my time, and this
Is my time today, bent however it wished,

24. To you I have resigned, oh woes of time,
My pride is gone—here, take my reins,

25. My molars have been struck by a calamity that has toppled
An eye whose tears wildly race,

26. Lying in wait for me from where I did not see them:
The eyes of the fates see me,

27. Hitting me from where I did not expect them
With the arrows of concerns and sorrows,

28. So today, oh twisting fates, I stand
An exposed target for whoever has shot me,

29. I used to ward off your arrows from me
With my fingers—but where are my fingers from me?

30. The herald has announced his death to me; does he not know
That it is to me he makes his announcement?

31. So I reckoned the heart within me has become
Between my fangs a terrified snake,

32. My soul yearns for the slain dove—
I have no hands for his defense,

33. The planets in their bounty would have wished
To wash him with the tears of their eyes,

34. And shrouded with his bier in a luminous sea
He and generosity in it wrapped together,

35. They carried him and every noble walked behind him
With blood pouring from their eyes,

36. Saying, “Where is the covenant of hope?” My today
Is withered branches and barren trees,

37. It has sucked away from you the water of generosity
With which branches were once irrigated,

38. Wondrous is how his lightweight bier travelled
With the weight of benefaction and kindness—

39. But I see it has not become lightweight as it travelled,
Rather the angels of the Merciful carried it,

40. People bid him farewell with sorrows
As houris of paradise came out to receive him;

41. Was the bier of any other dead ever so majestic?
The two realms mingled around his bier,

42. Over him the soil has loved to remain
As all upon it expire and pass;

43. Carry me to his burial ground, carry me
And make me stop at it and stop a while,

44. Call me from behind the mound—I call him
The fearful call of the fervent bereaved:

45. “Oh object of loss from whom I have lost
A cloud—whenever I said I thirsted it would give me drink”

46. And, oh buried one, in whom I have buried a sword
That I had readied to do battle with time,

47. It sheathed it in soil so my hands failed me
And my support slipped and I confessed to loss,

48. Elegy has preoccupied my speech about him
While my heart’s affection for other than him is but gardens,

49. Now whom shall I praise in eulogy
And whose love, oh whom shall I praise?

50. The vitalizer of praise-poetry has died; and were it not for his father
I would have said the tongue itself lies buried in his grave,

51. That derives from his being of glorious traits
Transcending contexts of meaning,

52. Righteous in deed, preeminent in merit, succor of those seeking succor, rainfall of those seeking rain,
Godfearing and ascetic, devoting himself to God

53. With a heart filled with awe of Him,
Combining harsh protectiveness for religion

54. In the way of triumph and softness of faith,
And with the glory of kings he wakes up revered

55. And sleeps in the lowliness of monks,
The truth of praise belongs to his sublimity—so say

56. What you will of his magnificent repute,
Since the early days he is the best

57. Of whoever time’s feet have trod,
His hands have burdened the neck of time

58. So it has passed the night as his dependent;
And due to his aid throughout earth

59. There is a goodly vestige everywhere,
He built in Karkh a house for dwellers

60. Where the foundations of that structure converged:
The streets lead to that door from all directions

61. As guests throng to him in drove,
Raising beneath the darkness of night for wayfarers

62. The flaming wicks he prepares,
With hospitality he has prepared for the guest therein

63. As many provisions as those knocking on his door,
Bounties that you see in the cradle of his generosity

64. Time as an infant suckling milk,
Gratitude falls short of them, so how can

65. Days reciprocate with any ingratitude?
I said to the sea, “Can you one day equal him?”

66. It said, “No—the two seas are not equal,”
And I asked the serpents, “Can you match his generosity?”

67. It said, “Where is the weeping man to the butchers?”
None can portray with the open palm of generosity

68. Save the One whose high repute has portrayed him:
That servant of utmost benevolence who has ascended

69. In nobility—fires fall short of him—
So they are the two most precious pillars of glory and repute

70. And they are the two lasting pillars of dew and favor,
Whenever a glorious element has surpassed

71. I find them driving its reins,
They were born luminous stars—they are comets of pride

72. Otherwise, streams of benefaction,
Equal in generosity they have outdone

73. The youth with merit and righteous conduct,
The living sprouts from the folds of death through them

74. And brings back the remainder’s expired life,
No loss of consent, as that remainder lives on—

75. Mustafa the openhanded, O objects of wishes!
Make his steps through you glide gently

76. To remove from him the heaviness of pacing upon mounts—
He is morn to days and fortune to nights,

77. Delight of fate and light of the times’ eye,
Which you receive from the scent of his praise

78. And the fragrance of his chest’s perfumes;
And of mortals his smile is a full moon

79. As his palms shed dew and basil,
The most blossomed guide when a delegation wanders—

80. His finger points the perplexed aright,
He whose reins are slackened in generosity, face is clear,

81. Hands are open, and tongue is loose,
And his traits in the lofty horizon are comets

82. As he is among them—and they are his protection,
Trustworthy of piety—and were any trustworthy like an intimate

83. In our time brought together, the two brightest?
—Pure of soul, pocket, and cloak, chaste

84. In private and openly,
Never soiled by sins’ dust upon him

85. Are his hands through perpetuity,
And in the veracity of his accent he is like Abu Dharr

86. Or Salman in Godwariness that portrays Salman’s wariness,
The hopeful Muhammad Hasan of beautiful face

87. Where the veils over march away from his domain—
Stores of the glory’s oceans within him

88. Suggest they would pridefully surpass peers
O father of al-Mustafa whose forbearance anchors

89. In the encounter of woes more than the calm,
Your soul is of holy essence wherein

90. You have won the highest states of mystic knowledge,
And God has described your heart as being

91. For piety—hinting in the ordeal’s verse;
And of the steadfast I see you in our time—

92. God has named you in the Recitation,
As though were it said “Count them,” we would count you

93. And refrain from bringing a second,
He means by the mention a collective

94. But intends by the statement: you alone,
Empty from the heart the ardors of bereavement,

95. O you who in merit fills the eye of time!