1. Death's strokes sever lifespans,
Why then be deluded by hopes?

2. Should not the wise be guided by thought
Of the flux of time and circumstance?

3. Should he not see with the eye of insight
The events of days and nights?

4. The world is but an abode of passing,
Its state inclined to decline.

5. In every age, illusion multiplies in it,
Greed lodged in men's breasts.

6. Deceived herein is the ignorant one,
And to me it is the deceiver of fools.

7. It is not worth a gnat's wing
To the elevated soul.

8. How many a king lies beneath dust
Whom gems and finery could not save!

9. How many a mighty one disappeared beneath the soil
Like the moon at the rising of the new crescent!

10. How many people shone like suns
Then set into the darkness of sunset!

11. Death's hand spares no noble one;
It cares not whom it seizes.

12. No event here escapes it,
For all lifespans are in its grasp.

13. At every moment its claws are embedded
In catching the eminent and the lowly.

14. Would that it grant the generous time,
What harm in that respite?

15. Would that it had given more time to the paragon of an age,
Unique among the ideal.

16. He was an ocean of knowledge, a perceptive sage,
Accomplished, perfect, handsome's compatriot.

17. The poet of Ghazza, scion of nobles,
Ever loyal to kings.

18. Since he attained the height of faith's perfection,
Faith said: you are my perfection.

19. So Perfection named him Pride out of esteem
And clothed him in awe and majesty.

20. When death's caller summoned him, he sped
To journey hard and fast.

21. He turned toward the Gardens a martyr,
Struck down by its plague with arrows.

22. The right hand of a piercing assailant pierced him,
While a left, had it struck, would have pierced.

23. Would that something could ransom him from death's bond!
I would be among those who ransom him, whatever the price.

24. Among his family were suns, full moons,
Then a star high in the climax of grandeur.

25. They turned away, but their memory remains with us,
It does not fade with the passage of nights.

26. They wept for him and he for them,
And they preferred conjunction with perfection.

27. May he be pleased with the generous one,
In unceasing succession forever!