1. O people, would that I were a woodcutter
To strike the trunks with my axe

2. Would that I were like torrents when they flow
That would shake graves with cruelty and sting

3. Would that I were like the winds, so I could bend
All that chokes the flowers with my ill omen

4. Would that I were like winter, covering
All that autumn had withered with my harshness

5. If only I had the might of storms, O my people
So I could hurl to you the revolt of my soul

6. If only I had the might of tempests when provoked
So I could call you to life with my groan

7. If only I had the might of tempests, but you
Are alive, life passes you by with insignificance

8. You are an ignorant spirit that hates light
And spends ages in a night of softness

9. You do not perceive truths though they hover
Around you without touch and determination

10. In the morn of life I soaked my cups
And imbibed them with the wine of my soul

11. Then presented them to you, but you spilled
My drink and trampled my cup, O people

12. So I suffered, then silenced my pain
And stifled my feelings and senses

13. Then I picked from my heart’s flowers
A bouquet that no human had touched

14. Yet you tore my roses and crushed them
With a crushing like no other crushing

15. Then you clothed me in a robe of sorrow
And crowned my head with mountains' thorns

16. I am going to the forest, O my people
To spend my life alone in misery

17. I am going to the forest, so I can
Bury my wretchedness deep in the forests

18. Then forget you as much as I can, for you
Are not worthy of my wine or my cup

19. I will recite my songs to the birds
And confide to them the longing of my soul

20. For they know the meaning of life and know
That the glory of souls is in awareness and feeling

21. Then I will spend there in the darkness of night
Casting my despair into existence

22. Then under the soft, verdant pine tree
The torrents will dig my grave

23. While the birds twitter over my tomb
And the breeze sings over me in a whisper

24. The seasons will go on walking around me
As they were in the freshness of my past evening

25. O people, you are a little child
Playing with dust while night falls murky

26. In this universe you are a force - if
An ingenious idea would seize and shake you

27. In this universe you are a force - shackled
By darkness of ages past far past

28. Wretched, wretched is he who is like me
In my sensitivity and fragility of soul

29. Thus spoke a poet who handed people
The wine of life in the best of cups

30. But they turned away sullenly
Mocked him and said in misery

31. He has lost his wisdom in the jinn's playground
Oh his misery - he is afflicted with touch

32. He always talked to feelings in the night
Conversed with the dead of every kind

33. He always accompanied darkness to the forest
Called out to spirits of every kind

34. He always chatted with devils in the valley
And sang with the winds with resonance

35. He is a sorcerer taught by sorcery
By devils at every sunrise

36. Banish the wicked blasphemer from the temple
The wicked are a source of vileness

37. Expel him and lend no ear to him
He is an evil spirit of misfortune

38. Thus spoke a foolish people
Who lived with their ignorant poet miserably

39. They misunderstood his spirit and his songs
So they insulted his feelings disdainfully

40. Though he is a prophet in the doctrine of life
Among his people he is afflicted with touch

41. Thus he spoke then walked to the forest
To live a life of poetry and sanctity

42. And far away there in the temple of the forest
Untouched by any misery

43. In the shade of the sweet pine and olive trees
He spends his life watching carefully

44. In the beautiful morning he sings with the birds
And walks in the bliss of awareness

45. Blowing his flute around him the flowers
Of spring sway from every color

46. His loose hair caressed by the breeze
On his shoulders like branches of the oak

47. The warbling birds sing around him
Chirping in the valley of every kind

48. You see him by the stream near the creek
Yearning to the bird filled with feeling

49. Or singing between the pines, or yearning
To the twilight's sphere, the evening fader

50. Then when darkness comes and
The darkness of existence covers the land

51. He stays in his lovely hut
Asking the universe in humility and whispers

52. About the estuary of life, where is its extent?
The heart of existence, where does it anchor?

53. The scent of roses in every valley
The birds' melody as they vesper

54. The defeat of winds in every ravine
The forms of life from past far past

55. Where do the shepherd's songs conceal them
The stillness of space and when do they vesper?

56. Thus he spends life and ends
The rings of years carefully watching

57. What a life deep in the forest
Lived amongst birds as they vesper

58. What a life undefiled
By the people's wickedness and vileness

59. What a life - in the universe
A strange life of sanctity