1. My abode in this lowly world is like a pearl in its shell,
A sword in its scabbard, dawn in its curtain.

2. No one of worth can escape the vicissitudes of fate,
Were he Kaiwan in glory and nobility.

3. The sun is veiled by gloom and confined by barriers,
The lion lurks in the jungle, the moon wanes.

4. Knowledge lies hidden in conjecture, its gems
Appear only when an arrow is shot straight to the mark.

5. When the hand of certainty grasps it
It comes with a light, plucked from the darkness.

6. He who takes the sun and stars for his model
Spends no night in anguish or sorrow.

7. God bless the mother who, when she saw me aged,
Was kind to me and took me into her care.

8. She protected me from another, a blessed one,
Whose dust now covers her in the grave.

9. She who suckled me in childhood yesterday
Is not dearer than she who suckles me in my dotage today.

10. She gave freely of her bounty until, as it ebbed,
She stilled the longings of her heart.

11. O you whose stock the winds of fortune have swept away,
I am confident of speedy repayment.

12. O monk of the monastery, draw men to my nature,
For it is a pure drop, whichever drop you take.

13. She who gained freedom in the bloom of youth
Is not like her who gained it in cave and urn.

14. She is the wine whose intoxication yields you
Whatever you wish of sweet and mellow drafts.

15. She is the meaning of time and the rapture of all
That is harmonized or made discordant therein.

16. I fear that she I fear will depart, and if
My soul departs, the germ of those past will perish.

17. Let me fulfil my trust, then leave me
To the will of the spheres that cast the dice.

18. God suffices me; if a people’s pedigree
Perish, they solace themselves upon the perished.