أَقول لَعَيني إِن يَكُن مَلّ مُسعدي

فَأَيَتُّها العَينُ السَخينة أَسعدي

I say to my eyes, if you are tired of weeping,

I say to my eye: if my comforters have grown weary,

Then O my sad eyes, make me happy,

Then you, O fevered eye, must grant me aid.

وَلا تَبخَلي عَيني بدمعك إِنَّهُ

مَتى تُسبلي لي رقّ دَمعي وَتَجمُدي

Do not be stingy with your tears, for they

Do not be miserly with your tears, O eye, for truly,

Whenever you shed them generously for me, and then withhold,

When you pour them out for me, my weeping eases though you turn to stone.

وَكَيف سُلّوي عَن حَبيب خَيالُه

أَمامي وَخَلفي في مَقامي وَمَقعَدي

And how can I be diverted from longing for a beloved whose image

And how can I find solace from a beloved whose phantom

Is before me and behind me, wherever I stand and sit?

Stands before me and behind me, wherever I rise or sit?

نَظَرتُ إِلَيهِ فَوقَ أَعواد نعشه

بمطروفة حيرى تَجور وَتَهتَدي

I looked at him above the poles of his bier

I gazed upon him atop the wood of his bier,

Borne waveringly, wandering and losing its way.

With a weary, bewildered eye that wanders, then finds its mark.

فَجاشت إِليَّ النَفس ثُمَّ رَدَدُتها

إِلى الصَبر فعلَ الحازِم المتجلّد

My soul surged towards me, but I drove it back

My soul heaved within me, but I forced it back,

To patience, as the resolute man of strength controls himself.

Toward patience, with the resolve of the steadfast man.

وَلَو يُفتَدى مَيتٌ بِشَيء فَدَيته

بِنَفسي وَمالي من طَريف وَمُتلَد

If the dead could be ransomed for anything, I would ransom him

And were the dead to be ransomed by anything, I would have ransomed him

With my soul and wealth, down to my worn-out sandal.

With my own life, and my wealth—both the new and the ancestral.

وَلَكِن رَأَيت المَوت يُمسي رَسوله

وَيُصبح لِلنَفس اللجوج بمرصد

But I saw that Death sends his messenger at dawn

But I have seen Death: his messenger arrives at dusk,

And at dusk to the soul that is stubbornly disobedient.

And by dawn lies in ambush for the clinging soul.