1. Duties are neglected and obligations forgotten,
And I denounce the people of this age.

2. The ruins of cities are left unmourned,
Not one lamenting their fate.

3. Though it shone like a sun over the land,
All else is wilderness and gloom but for it.

4. How many who cried out gained response
As hands were freed from shackles!

5. How many nobles and scholars it produced
Whose doors were trampled by mounted heroes!

6. How many desires found fruition within it
As youth gained their every wish and dream!

7. How many suns rose and moons marched
Across its lands, stars and planets alike!

8. How many steeds raced, their riders triumphing,
How many archers felled their targets!

9. I knew it once, brightening the darkest night,
Now days made black by endless calamities.

10. It had naught but glad tidings and blessings,
But only sorrows and trials remain.

11. Mansions of ladies became, after them,
Dens, where the winds and storms intrude.

12. Alas, ten thousand sighs for every stone
Of its buildings, once caressed by clouds.

13. I marvel at the wonders known to me here -
Would that I knew where those miracles went!

14. Where are its icons, its glories and virtues?
Where are its degrees, ranks and titles?

15. Where are the seas of knowledge, wisdom and dew?
Where are the clasping hands, piercing stars?

16. We rent our garments for its fallen sons,
Though too little, for so noble were they.

17. If their presence is gone, their deeds remain
Sublime traits for all time, never erased.

18. Some vestige lingers still upon this earth,
As if stars fixed in the sphere eternal.

19. Praise to their Maker! Praise to the living!
Each most noble, of overflowing merit.

20. I asked of their abode, and it replied:
All things perish, but God remains forever.

21. It tells us: for your sins I was seized,
And none of you turn in repentance to God.

22. Your hearts have hardened, your souls darkened,
And none among you cry out, aspiring to Him.

23. More fitting you should weep at their loss,
As the keenest laments rise up in their name.