1. If you aspire to live, bring forth
How many a father has passed away

2. How near is the new thing to decay
One day and swiftest of all to pass away

3. Night works and day while we in heedlessness
Do what they work in most heedlessness

4. O you who made time your steed
And time's terrain full of stumbling-places

5. What do you say and you have no argument
If the spoiler of pleasures came to you

6. Or what do you say if you came to dwell
In a place not safe for its people

7. Or what do you say if you came to dwell
In a place not safe for its people

8. Or what do you say and your rule not enforced
In what you leave behind of inheritances

9. None loved your pleasure at the price
Of rending his soul with regrets

10. You visited the graves, the graves of kings
Of luxury in the world, and people of dissipation

11. They were kings of foods and drinks
And clothes, perfumes and sweet scents

12. And lo, bodies bare of clothes
And faces in the soil disfigured

13. Earth left of them only skulls
White, gleaming, and bones decayed

14. Truly the tombs, I knew not are a spectacle
That melts the firm and excites tears

15. Glory to Him who subdued servants by might
Maker of stillness, spreader of motions