1. Yes, O Time, this is the mother of misfortunes,
So do not threaten me after it with tribulations.

2. It tore the veil of pretense between us,
And did not care for the remnant of the watchers.

3. You still cast my forehead between a foe
And a deviant, until you cast your arrows.

4. So your view of my chin has weakened my fortitude,
And your wink at my side has bent my posture.

5. Do not reckon me as one extending a defense hand,
Nor opening a mouth of reproach thereafter.

6. Nor one whitewashing hypocrisy through which I hope
To appease a slanderous critic striking me.

7. For it I used to preserve life and take cover,
And gather my composure from grabbing hands.

8. You penetrated the courtyard of glory until you stormed it
Without restraint or frown of an eyebrow.

9. And you planted in the deafness of my era with its body
The neighing of the horses slipping with their claws.

10. You blocked the path of glory from every direction
And turned against the noble from all sides.

11. So no precedents remain except those of a lost one,
And no hope except that of a disappointed rider.

12. After the son of Abdullah, who found a returnee
From life or grieved over a departed one?

13. I send my gaze ahead as a scout in yearning
For people from whom I want relief for my needs.

14. I strike a burning match of love for a brother
And reveal the hidden affection of a companion.

15. I plunge into the darkness of nights with their like,
So they turn away from me, continuously winking.

16. That heart refused save sincere, gentle patience,
And forbearance after it, never harsh nor withdrawn.

17. That the wounds of glory are not for a mender
Other than him, nor the cracks of generosity for a measurer.

18. Death folded from it a cloak in whose luxury
Remained the most fragrant days of generous lives.

19. It clothed eminence when the days smiled upon it,
But when they transgressed, the hand of a depriver seized it.

20. If the lines have been erased from it, its enduring renown
Will remain for long in the starry horizons.

21. It was a unique pearl among people,
Is there a brother for the full moon among planets?

22. Beauty refused to be bound by a composer’s necklace
Or to be crowned for it with the crown of a binding fillet.

23. So the hand of a breaker stretched out to it
While glory used to protect it from a piercing hand.

24. Ask death, did it keep in it any resentment
For which it took revenge, continuously seeking me?

25. Every day around my enclosure it has a raid
In which it scatters, striking the brilliant stars.

26. The elite of my brothers, the choicest of my siblings,
The best of my loved ones, and all of my relatives.

27. I wish it would pardon Ahmad, who ransomed him
With a spearhead of what I had gained and sought.

28. Now when its love strengthened my resolve
And its help came as complete fulfillment of my needs.

29. And its downpours filled the thirsty meadows of my hopes,
While they had been empty of drinking places.

30. I was shocked by it when love was freshly plucked
The new shirt of affection, easy to grasp.

31. It is as if I had just attached myself to it
Through my long experience or old trials.

32. I covered the mouth of the grieving lamenter with my palm,
And turned my face away from it, refusing to address it.

33. And I said, clarify what you are saying, perhaps
It will be like those untrue rumors.

34. How often has a cloud passed over its news, then
Its cover cleared up to show the soundness of affairs!

35. But when evil appeared to me in the marrow of its talk,
I girded my ribs with patience.

36. And I inclined toward the shadow of a barren,
Brief patience, and a pretense of calm, lying.

37. And a serene soul whose dignity
Had violated its composure in trying events.

38. And an eye whose lid grief, strange, had swollen,
So it flowed away, lost in strange tears.

39. I ask glory about it, and it has stopped,
Like the dumb being asked about a vanished companion.

40. And I take comfort from the news, and it distresses me,
Afflicted as I follow its trailing consequences.

41. So it clarifies what it had been ambiguous about,
And affirms to me what I had doubted.

42. A leader balanced when absent in his death
Are the horizons of the world from east to west.

43. Generosity and shame were fettered,
Two lame ones in earth piled atop each other.

44. His blamers breathe the sparks of rancor,
As if my heart were in the throats of howling wolves.

45. They shed white tears and clawed their foreheads,
You would think they cried blood with their eyebrows.

46. The lofty plateau of continuous glory collapsed,
The customs of dew were abolished, the star of planets vanished.

47. The mounts of the honorable returned thirsty,
Suffering from thirst in the drinking places of the diligent.

48. And who can make the teeth gray, returning them
To greenness through the years of old age?

49. O Master, you removed injustice from him when
Degradation in blind darkness had made him fall.

50. So when he saw you, he took heart
And his leg steadied plainly leaning on you.

51. And in whom shall poetry be molded after you as a composer
Of necklaces of praise, endowed with merits?

52. And where is your brother generosity if an asking hand
Does not find you a divider of those wishes?

53. And who will hear my voice and appreciate my help,
Struggling and loving, from the eligible?

54. Though fate slept and though when I called you
The face of dawn, you did not answer.

55. And you were not seen escorting a caravan,
Nor asking where a rider’s arrival was from.

56. Whenever time paralyzed my dwellings
I would call upon you, so you saved my belongings.

57. The treasure of my intimacy when a brother isolates me,
My refuge when my paths are closed off from me.

58. Though many a dutiful brother, even if I have not found
One like you, a brother in my family or strangers.

59. Death traveled from its homelands into my shelters,
And dug from its ruins to get my loved ones.

60. I wonder at this land, how it blames us,
Splitting us apart, though the land is the mother of wonders.

61. With our spears we ward off from our souls,
And from our days we feel anguished by battles.

62. The life of this world enchants us with the satiety of one who eats,
Though it is ruinous ill and the drink of one who drinks.

63. I speak to myself when alone about its eternity,
Yet where is my father gone and where are my relatives?

64. I was only one of a family,
Remaining among people only a departing son.

65. Am I more immune than a builder of ruins,
And my back firmer than one who reconstructs a fallen one?

66. Did the covenant of heaven take for me a hand
From death or did the frown of an eyebrow consent?

67. I repel the throats of my companions with a sword,
As if I could defend them from the consequences of my acts.

68. I have no knowledge from which adversity will be my fate,
And in which land my side will settle.

69. Since the arrow of death will inevitably fall,
I wish I were one shot by the hand of my companion!

70. I wish a witness to my neighborhood were buried in Kufa,
Even if the testimony is of an absent one.

71. I wish the expanse of earth between us
Were folded by the hands of riders over the hillsides.

72. So I would stop over it to bid him farewell
Even if he did not understand the words of one addressing him.

73. And I wish the edge of love between us remained
Even if its day had never been part of my gains.

74. Greetings to joys after you, if I live
They will not be the comfort of my aims.

75. When grief soils the garment, I wash it away,
So it returns anew with pouring tears.

76. And if the days make a blessing befall me,
I mention you within it, so it turns into my misfortunes.

77. I avoid the eyes of gloaters as endurance,
And smile at them with frowning faces.

78. I show them that I am steady, rising,
With claws beneath my wings.

79. The downpour of tears interspersed with sighs escorted you,
Beacons that did not shine with the gleam of an amulet.

80. The lightning’s ring in its sides defiles
The red headbands of the black hills.

81. Above the earth’s expanse, a companion to it,
Of what it greeted of the cheeks of sturdy mounts.

82. It sees every soil that was once smooth
As devoted to it, and every young foal as its youth.

83. When the bare expanse of a land is covered with its mud
It becomes a verdant garden with creeping plants.

84. Even if the sea in your grave is murmuring
With its waves, away from the trains of clouds.