1. Sick in the land of Rayy, his malady exhausted him,
And he has no healer but in distant Iraq.

2. A stranger, strange of fate and grace and passion!
Indeed, the state of the virtuous is always strange.

3. And I have done no wrong to deserve my condition,
Except that, as they say, I am a man of letters.

4. God has refused to join fortune and grace for the youth
Until he sees the water lapped up by flame.

5. If I live, I will not leave my homeland, and if I die,
Then after me let no stranger die in time.