1. Praise be to Allah for what He has ordained
And thanks be to Allah for what He has commanded

2. I don't think the earth can contain a young man
Whose existence was one of the greatest

3. Like a young man they call a poet
Who has never sensed poetry except through death

4. His life is a gloomy night of visions
Terrifying ghosts, intense images

5. Events devour his hopes
And their pouring blood is saturated

6. Foolish is he who builds wishes
Those wishes that challenge fate

7. He came but no one rejoiced at his birth
Except his friends sorrow and reflection

8. Perplexed, not knowing himself
Like how this stone knows

9. He cries without tears and in his heart
Is enough to flood the world if it erupted

10. And perhaps his weakness adorns him
To complain of his pain to people

11. But he fears their solace
In an ordeal where patience has committed suicide

12. So he recoils and Allah knows best what
Rages in his volcano of embers

13. He knows no patience, but when
He saw the long darkness, he was patient

14. Between his hopes and havoc
An old covenant remains in effect

15. So whenever its light looms on his horizon
It is soon extinguished

16. And each day of his life extended
Is a cemetery in the desert of life

17. Its dead buried in its depths
Are his burnt up dreams

18. And at all times he has a funeral
For someone dying in his heart

19. He goes on as he comes with no elegy
Cried for him or a melody to commemorate

20. He yearns for oblivion in a world
Where there is no escape from sorrows

21. His virtuous morals are his inheritance
From his noble parents, the precious pearls

22. It is great wealth if poverty
Befalls him and his pride if he boasts

23. And in the recesses of his heart beats
Frantic pulses that do not settle

24. Knocking the door of the grave, crazed
And informing the one who has passed of nearing travel

25. How he lived for people in his dreams
And woke up with no praise or memories

26. He is mourned for everyone in their grief
And celebrated at their weddings if they passed

27. Until he dissolved among them
As if he had sight or hearing for them

28. But they whose idol is clay
And their mother is the mother of malice and harm

29. They destroyed what he built for them
And did not heed his broken heart

30. This is his Judas who betrayed him
And that his Pilate who scorned him

31. In his life is an expansive field
That did not know any cultivators or planting

32. A field in which illusions grow
Trees bearing diverse fruits

33. Death lies dormant in their hellishness
And hellfire burns bright in them

34. His days are dwarves, quick moving
Tormented, miserable, grieving

35. And the night is a monster looming over him
Deformed, bloody claws

36. It stays saturating him without mercy
And clinks cups for him if it rested

37. If he slept, it staged a theater for him
Its realms beyond perceptions’ reaches

38. Dreams play out in his prison
The story of the past now buried

39. The story of the past, and in reliving it
Reliving the history of sorrows and wakefulness

40. He said, as his soul constricted around him
And unknown memories returned to him

41. “My Lord this is my boat, confused
Its oars broken, unable to settle

42. As if this sea is in my heart
Tempestuous, turbulent, foaming waves”

43. The winds of time kept toying with him
While he surrendered to them without resisting

44. He cannot reach the bottom and his faith
In the surface cannot save him from danger

45. I pitied myself and him whenever
I neared deliverance, it declined and retreated

46. And whenever I longed for a shore
The depths called to me, “Do not wait”

47. My Lord this is me in my boat
Your servant, forgive me if my tongue stumbled

48. I emptied my cup of the wine of wishes
For I found despair to be the eye of attainment

49. My soul was once like others’ souls
An orphaned virgin girl like pearls

50. I wasted my life singing for her
What the sun inspires and the moon intimates

51. Until what You know better occurred
I seek God’s forgiveness and complain of fate

52. So I returned while regret fills my ribs
Broken lutenist, defective string

53. I swallow despair and with it stuff
The mouth of advice—empty or nonsense

54. And whenever a friend asks me
What do you expect from the coming tomorrow

55. I say what pleases You my Creator
And defeats illusion and undoes frustration

56. Praise be to Allah for what He has ordained
And thanks be to Allah for what He has commanded