1. How can the learned find rest for their eyes
Or take pleasure in sweet sleep or slumber

2. When death openly threatens them
If only they had ears to hear!

3. The fire blazes - their fate is sealed
None can tell who will escape and who will fall

4. The birds and beasts now rest securely
While the fish in the sea have no cause for alarm

5. Yet man is hostage to his own gaining
With a watcher over his secrets who sees all

6. Till the Day of Gathering he meets alone
His adversary - sight, hearing and limbs

7. When prophets and martyrs stand witness
And mankind, jinn, and angels bow down

8. The scrolls fly open in hand
Revealing secrets and tales for all to see

9. Some men of prestige wish they were
Swine - or predators - to be saved from this

10. How can you face your witnesses and reckoning
- So soon to come - and not know what will be?

11. To eternal bliss without end
Or Hell - no reprieve or rescue?

12. It alternately lifts them up and casts them down
When they hope for release from their anguish, they fall

13. Long did they weep, but their pleading was futile
Alas, no tenderness avails, nor grief

14. Can learning help the scholar before death?
Many have trodden this path, but turned not back