1. Your fate sways until it becomes turbulent
And tenderness may bend, not due to rapture

2. Time has passed and time has come
And between the two times lies all strangeness

3. Some have descended beneath the soil
And some have ascended above the clouds

4. The vicissitudes of time have advised us
Some of the vicissitudes are like some sermons

5. Had people known the path of benefits
They would not take it except out of shame

6. Oh Lord, an illness may become a cure
When medicine fails and the healer despairs

7. Among the woes of fate is that one who
Relieved anguish becomes embroiled in worries

8. And if a man was among the despoiled
He wakes among them despoiling

9. Do you not see the glorious Arabs
And how the glory of the Arabs collapsed

10. Where is the one spears raised
And where is the one huts built

11. Where are the lofty pillars of our might
That almost touch their peaks to the clouds

12. Knowledge shone when we shone
And it continues to fade as we fade

13. We climbed the steps of greatness
But our climb ends in a stumble

14. And how many great-souled men were among us
Whose ambition reached to the highest positions

15. And how many resolute men shake the lands
With their first movements, whether in rest or leaping

16. I swear had minds not been deluded
Their owners would not cease from achieving

17. And were it not for what came between them
They would not have found the heights difficult

18. Whoever feeds his soul its desires
Is like one who feeds the fire ample timber

19. Except God have mercy on a time now past
That barely smiled before it wept

20. And bring to life nights when we were in them
Shepherds over those near and far

21. Kings when they grew old
And thrones when they collapsed

22. Ask the East what brought it down
And sent it on the path of decay

23. If only its sons had succeeded its sons
Its disappointed ones would not have been disappointed

24. Among them were the homes of knowledge
As among them were the homes of literature

25. Can branches yield flowers
When the water of each brook is dried up

26. And how many guides spent the night among them
Bearing debasement and evil plotting

27. As if his chest had not been a wellspring
For what flowed from his chest

28. Whoever races to the heights
Most deserves fatigue over others

29. It is no loss to one with ambition
If people prohibit what he demands

30. How many lamps shone light
When the winds did not blow

31. No fault in an oyster lacking pearls
Nor flaw in dust lacking gold

32. Sons of the East! Where are those between us
And the men of knowledge, by lineage

33. The sun has disappeared from your lands
To where, had you wished, it would not have disappeared

34. To the West, where are those men
And those books and that knowledge

35. And if you want what I want, still,
You will not attain the heights behind barriers

36. Turn with the people, see how they turned
For the law of time is to overcome

37. Whoever defies time in what it loves
Sees from time's harm what he does not love