1. Time decreed that I should love you without joy
We never met, nor bade farewell.

2. Had greeting you brought no distress,
I would have been content with painful parting.

3. But the lover oft attains little
So how wretched is the constant yearner!

4. Such is the fate of the virtuous, though long
Have I complained of whom I complain, with no avail.

5. You are a kinsman, the bond between us
Feeling and understanding, so rest, be dignified.

6. I knew you gentle of mien and palm, to loved ones,
I hoped in you, you did not refuse, nor hesitate.

7. Noble you were, hardship like ease to you,
You refused pride or virtue, though enticed.

8. No tears of kin and friends were wasted in sorrow
To loved ones, you were no neglecter.

9. We lost you, sorrow encompassed all,
Your loss, to loved ones was no neglect.

10. No day when morn was welcomed, was said
A pillar has passed, home is lonesome wilderness.

11. The cedars of Lebanon witnessed its horror,
Nearly mad with awe and trembling.

12. The day of gathering was acted out in it, its light
Darkness, as if the air and sky were veiled.

13. No difference I saw between wedding and funeral
In that thronged gathering place.

14. We mourn whom kindness was his beauty,
What lover lives untouched by loss?

15. Our flowing tears upon fiery ribs showed
Like rain upon fertile meadow.

16. Hardest of all is parting after closeness
How many hearts spilled over!

17. No solace did brothers and sisters find
In the death that was joy to four.

18. Gone, while hearts around me stun to silence,
Their tears like water on flaming limbs.

19. Who can divert death, when it descends
Upon thrones and armies in splendor arrayed?

20. If we could ransom you with some life,
We would offer two lives for each of your years.

21. Never did we grieve you shared with us
At times of grief, common woes.

22. Blessed what came from you, your memory
With scents of apple in bloom.

23. How can we have your gentle manner and charm again
And those refined qualities, after so violent an end?

24. The sweet smile’s charm in gentle speech
And fine words, in diverse discourse?

25. How can I console your family, when I
Share their sorrow, with no pretense?

26. Oh how you left us, companions now lonely,
Every heart and place made desolate!

27. Dear to us, that earth should cover you,
The home robbed of its finest view.

28. Had I glimpsed you before death, not fully seen,
It would have consoled me, unsatisfied.

29. But death's pang seized me in my sleep,
Far from the sight and sound of loved one.

30. You sighed away, a blossoming branch in youth
At dawn, to be watered with tears.

31. Your blossoms scattered, and charm departed,
After you, I hope no spring may come again.

32. Beloved of all, aloft in gathering
But gone, all mourn in the depth of graves.

33. Condolences to kin, man is not immortal
Though gaining reign of Chosroes and Tobba.

34. Grieve with brothers, who lost brothers,
The earth a mere resting place after pasture.