1. الله أكبر في ضريح واحد

    زوجان بالجراح أمي ووالدي

    God is greatest! In a single tomb,

    Two spouses, amid wounds: my mother and my father.

  2. أبتي التحقت بها فضمك قبرها

    بشرى لوالدتي بهذا الوافد

    My father, you joined her, and her grave embraced you.

    Glad tidings to my mother of this newcomer!

  3. في رمسها في شهرها في يومها

    قل يال موضع سجدة للساجد

    In her grave, in her month, on her day.

    Say: what a place for a worshipper's prostration!

  4. عشرون عاما إثر أربعة مضت

    ما بين موتكما كيوم واحد

    Twenty years, following four, have passed;

    The span between your deaths is like a single day.

  5. فكأنه يوم الزفاف إليكما

    عقدته بينكما يمين اللاحد

    As though it were a wedding day for you both,

    Its bond was tied between you by the gravedigger's right hand.

  6. فاستيقظا من نومة فلطالما

    حكموا على الأحيا بحكم الراقد

    So awaken, both of you, from sleep—for so often

    They have judged the living as they judge the sleeper.

  7. واستقبلا نعما لديه أعدها

    للمتقين ويا له من واعد

    And receive the blessings He has prepared in His presence

    For the God-fearing—and what a promiser He is!

  8. وإليكما من فلذة الكبد الدعا

    فدعاؤه المقبول خير مساعد

    And to you both comes prayer from your child, a piece of your liver;

    For his accepted prayer is the best helper.

  9. أرشدتماه إلى الهدى وطريقه

    فجنيتما منه مجاني الراشد

    You both guided him toward right guidance and its path,

    And reaped from him the harvests of the rightly guided.

  10. بدعا كما له في الحياة وبره

    بكما اهتدى واللّه أصدق شاهد

    Through your prayer for him in life, and his devotion

    To you both, he was guided—and God is the truest witness.

  11. فسلاله طول الإقامة في ذرى

    الأعمال فالأبنا كنوز فوائد

    So ask for him a long stay upon the heights

    Of deeds—for children are treasures of benefit.

  12. لولا انتفاعكما بدعوته لما

    طلب الحياة ولا وجود لخالد

    But for the benefit you both gain from his prayer, he would not

    Seek life—and no one is immortal.

  13. أبوي أين اليوم من قلبيكما

    ذاك الحنان نفضت بعدكما يدي

    My parents, where today, from your two hearts,

    Is that tenderness? Since losing you both, I have shaken my hand in despair.

  14. لو عاد للانسان سالف دهره

    ما حن للأطلال قلب الفاقد

    If a person's bygone years could return,

    The bereaved heart would not yearn for the ruins.

  15. من لي بعودة ذينك الشخصين من

    مثليهما في الناس لست بواجد

    Who can bring those two people back to me, whose

    Equals among people I cannot find?

  16. لم يمض يوم من زماني لم يكن

    ذكراهما في ضمن ذاك العائد

    No day of my life has passed without

    Their memory being part of that returning day.

  17. أبتي مضت حجج عليك ثلاثة

    ولدي منك الطيف أحسن وارد

    My father, three years have passed over you;

    And your apparition is my finest visitor.

  18. لولا سلوي بالخيال لما أرى

    حيا وأنت لدي غير مشاهد

    Were it not for my solace in imagination, I would not be seen

    Alive, while you remain unseen by me.

  19. ووجدت ذكرك في القريض مجدا

    لي منك عهد المزدهي بقصائدي

    And I found that recalling you in verse renewed

    For me the memory of you taking pride in my poems.

  20. فوقفت فوق الرمس بالذكرى

    وقلت تحية المولد الأيسر العائد

    So I stood over the grave in remembrance,

    And spoke a greeting for the returning, auspicious birthday.

  21. وذكرت ذاك اليوم يوم وفاته

    وزفير قلب نازل متصاعد

    And recalled that day—the day of his death,

    And a heart's sighing, falling and rising.

  22. وتلوت بالمنظوم قول مؤرخ

    قل ذا ضريح فيه أمي ووالدي

    And I recited in verse a chronicler's words:

    Say: this is a tomb that holds my mother and my father.