1. I've never seen you riding your whims,
Thinking God does not see you.

2. Look out for yourself, death wherever you turn
Is standing there waiting for you.

3. Take time for tranquility out of your hustle and bustle
Before you can no longer move.

4. Death has an insistent caller, as if
He stood before you then called you.

5. And for your day of poverty you had provisions you squandered,
And man is poorest when he gets there.

6. You will be shrouded in the garb of one impotent,
And your dear ones will shriek over you.

7. And every confidant will leave you even if
He called you brother just an hour before and wept over you.

8. And to what extent do you run? That one which
Cannot be escaped when you reach your goal.

9. Oh would that I know by what pact
You hope for immortality when you weren’t created for that!

10. Oh ignorant of death, hostage to it!
Did you reckon that he who dies has any escape?

11. Do not lie! If the grave were opened
Your tricks would cease and your leaves fall away.

12. You pursued your daily bread neglecting your religion
And your daily bread would have pursued you.

13. You made your honor the cheapest thing for greedy men,
And that is enough as a temptation and perdition.

14. And I see you seeking riches to attain it,
And if you were content you would have attained your richness.

15. Your parents have passed away from what they amassed,
And you will pass away just as your parents passed away.

16. Had you taken the gravity of calamity as a lesson
You would have made your mother a lesson and your father.

17. You keep preaching so the youth awakes
As if none cares for that but you!

18. You got your fill of youth’s hotheadedness and drunkenness
And you saw how old age weakened you.

19. You will not rest from worshipping hopes
Until you cut short your hopes with acceptance.

20. You scolded your servant for blindness but enlightened him
With vision while beautifying your own blindness!

21. Like the wick of a lamp burning itself
To give light to the one who lit it, so are you!

22. And of good fortune is that you pardon backbiting
And attain your goodness or restrain your pain.

23. Time makes us feel secure from calamities yet we see
For it in every direction traps set.

24. Oh Time! You have increased our lessons with one
Whom the centuries turned in his grave!