1. أظُبى الردى أنصلتي وهاك وريدي

    ذهب الزمانُ بعدَّتي وعديدي

    O blades of death, unsheathe yourselves; here is my jugular.

    Time has carried off my arms and my supporters.

  2. نشبت سهام النائبات بمقلتي

    فلحفظ ماذا أتقي عن جيدي

    The arrows of calamities have lodged in my eye.

    What, then, would I preserve by shielding my neck?

  3. ماذا الذي يا دهرُ توعدني به

    أوبعدُ عندكَ موضعٌ لمزيد

    What is it, O Time, that you threaten me with?

    Is there still room with you for more?

  4. طرقتني الدنيا بأيّ ملَّةٍ

    ذهبت عليَّ بطارفي وتليدي

    By what creed did the world assail me,

    carrying off my new possessions and my inheritance?

  5. ما خلت رحب الصدر حتَّى فاجأت

    عنِّي يضيقُ وفيه رحب البيد

    I never thought a spacious breast—until calamities struck—

    could grow too narrow for me, though it held the deserts' vastness.

  6. الآن أصبحَ للنوائب جانبي

    غرضاً وشملُ قوايَ للتبديد

    Now my side has become, for calamities,

    a target, and my united strength lies open to dispersal.

  7. طلعت عليَّ الحادثات ثنيَّة

    لا يُهتدى لرتاجها المسدود

    Calamities have climbed up to me through a mountain pass

    whose sealed gateway no one can find a path to.

  8. وإليَّ قد طلعت ذرًى من شاهقٍ

    لا ترتقى هضباته بصعود

    And toward me they have climbed a towering mountain's peaks,

    whose heights no ascent can scale.

  9. فنزعن من كفَّي قائمَ أبيضٍ

    أعددته للقا الخطوب السود

    Then they wrested from my two hands the hilt of a gleaming sword

    I had readied to meet black adversities.

  10. قد ملت نحو الصبر حين فقدته

    فإذا المُصاب بصبريَ المفقود

    I turned toward patience when I lost him,

    only to find my affliction lay in my lost patience.

  11. أفهل أذودُ الحادثات بكفّي ال

    جذاء أم بحساميَ المغمود

    Can I then repel calamities with my hand—

    severed—or with my sheathed sword?

  12. عجباً أمنتُ الدهرَ وهو مخاتلي

    ورقدتُ والأيامُ غير رقود

    How strange! I trusted Time, though it was my deceiver,

    and slept, though the days never slept.

  13. وأنا الفداء لمن نشأتُ بظلِّه

    والدهرُ يرمقني بعين حسود

    And I am a ransom for the one in whose shade I grew,

    while Time watched me with an envious eye.

  14. لم أدرِ ما لفحُ الخطوب بحرّها

    وهواجرُ الأيام ذات وقود

    I did not know how adversities scorched with their heat,

    while the days' scorching noontides were full of fire.

  15. ما زلتُ وهو أحنى عليَّ من أبي

    بألذِّ عيشٍ في حماه رغيد

    I lived on—he was kinder to me than my father—

    in the sweetest life of ease beneath his protection,

  16. حتَّى رماني في صبيحة نعيه

    أرسى بداهيةٍ عليَّ كؤود

    until Time struck me on the morning his death was announced,

    and laid a crushing calamity firmly upon me.

  17. ففقدتُه فقدَ النواظر ضوءها

    وعججتُ عجَّة مثقلٍ مجهود

    I lost him as eyes lose their light,

    and wailed the wail of one burdened and exhausted.

  18. ما لي وللأيام قوّض صرفُها

    عنِّي عمادَ رواقي الممدود

    What have I to do with the days? Their changes have torn

    from me the pillar of my outspread pavilion.

  19. عثرتْ فجاوزت الإِقالة عثرةٌ

    وطئت بها أنفي وأنفَ الجود

    They stumbled—a stumble beyond all redress—

    and with it trampled my nose and the nose of generosity.

  20. ومضتْ بنخوة هاشمٍ وإبائها

    فطوتهما والصبرَ في ملحود

    And they carried off Hashim's pride and defiance,

    folding them both, and patience, into a grave.

  21. حملت بكاهلها الأجبّ لفقده

    ثقلَ المصاب وركنها المهدود

    Upon its maimed back, at his loss, it bore

    the weight of affliction and its shattered pillar.

  22. وشككت مذ تحت الضلوع قلوبُها

    رجفت صبيحةَ يومها المشهود

    And I wondered, when its hearts beneath its ribs

    trembled on the morning of its witnessed day,

  23. أبه نعى الناعي لها عمرو العُلى

    أم شيبة الحمد انطوى بصعيد

    whether in him the herald had announced Amr al-Ula's death to it,

    or Shaybat al-Hamd had been enfolded in the earth.

  24. فكأنَّما أضلاعُ هاشم لم يكن

    أبداً لها عهدٌ بقلبِ جليد

    It was as though Hashim's ribs had never

    known a steadfast heart.

  25. ما زال يوعدها الزمان بنكبةٍ

    صمَّاءَ تأخذ من قوى الجلمود

    Time kept threatening it with a calamity,

    unyielding, draining the strength of solid rock,

  26. حتَّى أطلَّ بوثبةٍ فتبيَّنت

    ذاك الوعيدَ بيومها الموعود

    until it leapt into view, and Hashim recognized

    that threat on the day appointed for it.

  27. لم تقضِ ثكل عميدها بمحرمٍ

    إلاَّ وأردفها بثكل عميدِ

    It had not finished mourning its chief in Muharram

    before Time followed that loss with the loss of another chief.

  28. يبكي عليه الدينُ بالعين التي

    بكت الحسينَ أباه خيرَ شهيد

    Religion weeps for him with the eye that

    wept for Husayn, his father, the finest martyr.

  29. إن يختلط رزءاهما فكلاهما

    قصما قرَا الإِيمان والتوحيد

    If their two bereavements mingle, both

    have broken the back of faith and belief in God's oneness.

  30. وأرى القريض وإن ملكتُ زمامه

    وجريتُ في أمدٍ إليه بعيدِ

    And I see that poetry, though I hold its reins

    and have raced far toward it,

  31. لم ترضَ عنه غيرَ ما قدَّرته

    في مدح جدِّك طاهراً في الجيد

    has pleased you only in what I fashioned

    in praise of your grandfather, pure upon the neck.

  32. أمنت حشاشتُك الروائعُ لا تخف

    جورَ الزمان عليَّ بالتنكيد

    Your vital spirit is safe from terrors; do not fear

    Time's tyranny in bringing misery upon me.