1. Alas! Does my heart not grieve for you, having lost all patience?
It drinks the bitter patience by which patience is fulfilled.

2. Do my eyes not ache, wounded by the hand of separation?
And the malady has defeated the physicians, unable to cure.

3. So farewell, leaving the abode of cares and trials!
God be with you! I say to you good tidings:

4. By your life, this world is no abode of dignity,
Where he is esteemed among the elite, would be esteemed.

5. The people are but the dying and the children of the dying.
Thus destiny flows! Glory to Him who ordained it so.

6. Who did not die in his day will die tomorrow.
Who did not die willingly will meet his death by compulsion.

7. Indeed, existence is only for Him who created existence,
Returning us to life after death another time.

8. While death is only for him destined for death,
Equal on the greensward as in the dust.

9. Restrain yourself, for the world is but a fleeting specter,
When it comes to the eye doleful and bitter.

10. How short are the hopes within the youth’s breast,
His aspirations so long, and fate only glances at him briefly!

11. I see the death of the wretched in his cares,
As poor as when he died in his kingdom like Chosroes.

12. He who sees the world with discerning eye
Sees its ease hardship and its profits loss.

13. Judgment belongs only to God. Whoever
Reproaches fate is ignorant and wrongs fate.

14. O Death! If I blame you, I blame myself,
For between us you have not caused any rancor.

15. How many graves that were once inhabited are now desolate!
How many palaces you have turned into ruins!

16. O doves of the valley, why do you lament?
Let my heart lament, for my heart knows best!

17. We have lost a writer whose verse Mount Tarsh would tend,
Gaining a share whenever he wrote a line.

18. My tongue falters, incapable of thanking adequately
A brother whose noble qualities it wearies to praise.

19. Maroun! I never claimed before you
That the earth screens the full moon from my eyes.

20. What land have you inhabited, so that we wonder
That it contained a sea?

21. You are not far, a stranger. All of us
In it are strangers; if only we reflect well.

22. Mention of you kindles the fire of sadness in the night encampment,
And my tears are on the verge of extinguishing the embers.

23. If you could be ransomed, I would ransom you loyally
With a free soul that cannot be bought or sold.

24. They say: “Whoever leaves heirs, does not die.”
I say: “When the one who leaves a legacy dies, he dies.”

25. If there is no gain but mention for the youth,
Neither right hand nor left has prospered.

26. You have so many gentle, refined qualities in literature,
When we repeat them, they diffuse fragrance.

27. You have so many eloquent, ingenious lines of verse
With which to adorn your fair, chaste cheeks.

28. She is the doe! Were it not for their naming the rises
An old woman, reason would name it a virgin.

29. O descendants of Naqqash! Let not weeping distress you,
Whether the eyelids expand or the breast tightens.

30. I see when Fate apportioned sorrow, it singled us out
For nine-tenths, and burdened you with one tenth.

31. O lips of Beirut, you are desolate! How rarely
Do we see you happy afterward, o lips!

32. My eyes will weep forever, helpless
To obey the decree of Labid. I cannot excuse them.

33. I grieve—if grieving could avail—for him.
But praise of him is more befitting.