1. If you have been warned of loss
Then I am the one warned of birth

2. The day of birth and death, both
Are two sides standing for all existence

3. And I see the abode of the fetus like its grave
And I see life like its promised resurrection

4. A resurrection to which all returns, yet
In it there is nothing of the rewarding repetition

5. Punishment has included it and spread as if
Formerly all were the people of Thamud

6. Time casts its sons from glory, neither
Lords in its rule nor slaves

7. And to what you have reached an end
All end in a nothingness customary to it

8. Two alike - between them life interposed
Like the letter separating two doubled letters

9. The sky weeps over the earth and dresses
Garments of mourning from the clouds of black

10. As if the gusting of the winds were sighing
Between straightening and ascent

11. The clouds poured earth on a withered branch
On which mantles of pitch darkened

12. It bent in sorrow and leaned as if
It were watered by tears of the grape cluster

13. Fresh from the water of youth, thriving
Bent by a wind from the blowing of hot sirocco

14. When it endeared its tenderness it was stripped
And so is the pliant branch in enduring

15. Time envied its garden of delight
Regretfully reaching out to it a jealous palm

16. Dye pouring from the tears with which
The hardness of frozen ice almost melted

17. And kindled a fire of grief - if poured with those tears
Those tears would not be quenched

18. Time robbed with it the jewel of a noble company
Of the refined literature, the beautiful singing

19. Like the beautiful pearl composed as a necklace
For generosity and kindness, not for avarice

20. O dweller in the abode of mortality, be patient for one
Who dwelt in an abode of bliss and immortality

21. Patience can mend every afflicted heart
Until behind every loss appears recompense

22. It was the ideal of righteousness and piety thus
It won a share of fortune in happy Heaven

23. The cloud of generosity waters the earth of its tomb
And pardon waters it, a cloud of generosity