1. I lost my sanity in love's plateau
And lost what reason had sustained in me

2. And strove for glory with great diligence
Yet tumbled short of reaching glory's keep

3. I see youth gleaming, rejuvenated
While I am frail and sallow-cheeked

4. Each night my dark-cloaked neighbor
Adds two stones toward my tomb from quarry's heap

5. As distant are the stars from my poor eyes
As distant as the horseman from the rose

6. My lids like a gazelle have come to be
To bar the way 'gainst sleep with their repose

7. If you had known, my father, when I was
A babe, my fate would be devoid of bliss

8. You would have wept when I was born in woe
And choked me while I lay in cradle's midst

9. They whisper of me in despair
"He is a sword of keen and piercing wit"

10. If I'm a sword of reason, then I am
A blade not yet unsheathed from out its slit

11. The days desired to stab me
My chest with swords that have no clue to quit

12. While I, a lad, still gather in a knot
From meadows of my youth the rose's wit

13. The turns of fate clawed savagely my frame
With talons like the talons of the beast

14. Alas, specters of doom have come so close
What will Saada's fate be after my decease?

15. Mother! Where is my father, for with him
Are matters lost that stole away my wit

16. My father, may God grant you peace, how can it be
You left me and abandoned me, fending alone?

17. Were you like me, despairing and fatigued,
So you roamed the world pursuing your own deed?

18. No matter, sleep, and let the soul be pure
For to you my passion has always cleaved.