1. Is it the bell of sorrow or the chime of joy
That has stirred my heart in the hills?

2. Messages from Egypt to Syria have flown
With news of grief or glee, I cannot tell

3. Has a wedding taken place to beat its drums?
Or alas, my heart, has the dirge of war begun?

4. I seek my Lord to learn the tidings
And bid the noble kin speak out and clear the mist

5. Tell me, what is behind you and why are you distracted?
Why have you gathered in the abode for no cause?

6. Has your full moon risen in the horizon brightly?
Or has it set, O people, shrouded in dust?

7. My pledge to him was to reach perfection, so why
Is he who was sublime now fallen from grace?

8. By God, where is the esteemed youth? Where has he gone?
Where did he fall? Where did the hand of fate cast him?

9. By God, when the news of his death spread
I wept until the east almost shone through me

10. I have become, O people, a ruin from his ruin
A corpse stirred in agony and restless grief

11. Take my sanity, for madness has taken its place
Rebuke my heart for not melting away

12. Tear out my vitals, for I cannot protect them
From sorrow and distress after him

13. I yearn for the branch which the morning breeze had adorned
In its blooming meadow, then the hand of doom snapped

14. What heart is not broken, what eye not crying?
He reached, when he walked, a treasure buried

15. Under mountains of veil on Al-Muqattam's slope
A slope in which the beautiful patience was buried

16. With the beautiful face that turned and did not return
The drifting clouds did not know his figure,

17. So tears came to sing his song in place of clouds
O bereft father, grieved

18. By the disasters of fate and its blows
Sorrow has ignited its embers in your heart

19. While you are the joy of the Arabs in the wilderness
How can the Nile quench your thirst on its bank

20. You imagined the Nile was made of flames?
You are the generous one whose gifts overflowed

21. So time grew greedy and rose up to rob them
What can console you, O paragon of virtue

22. Master of knowledge and literature of the age?
Wait, your branch in the heavenly meadow has appeared

23. With angels greeting the most pious of Arabs
And so we in this life for a period

24. Race and run while death hunts us down
Damn the fickle times that in their fluctuations

25. Squander life between seriousness and play