1. Was it far from youth he fell in love and grew infatuated?
Nay, no more frolicking or playing for him.

2. The winters shed their cold
In the musk of your excuse, so it caught fire.

3. O soul, revive your prayers and hopes!
Live a springtime and you will witness wonders.

4. So take in gratitude to old age what
Morning brought and evening took away.

5. In it you gained knowledge of what
You paid with your lifetimes to acquire.

6. Wine, when aged and described,
Costs more than grapes for drinking.

7. What remains of a man's life, for him
Is blessed if therein is a known path.

8. He builds in it through his penance
What his days of youth destroyed.

9. And awakens an eye piety put to sleep
And restores a collapsed sanctuary.

10. And in it poetry flows in
A rhythm called obscure by the rabble,

11. With dwellings among the Arabs for one
Of unknown origin if he claims ancestry,

12. Easy of versification but which
The Arabs were not inspired by its Creator to speak,

13. Its strangeness so it laid no peg
In encampments nor stretched a cord.