أفي كل يومٍ أنت ناشدُ غايةٍ

يُظَنُّ بها مما تراوغك السحرُ

Is it every day that you go seeking some end,

so that one might think, because of it, the dawns are dodging you?

حريصٌ عليها إن يُلمَّ بها البلى

إذا كدَّرتها عندك المحنُ الغبر

Eager for it, though decay may overtake it

when dark trials have clouded it in your eyes.

وما الحرصُ إن لم تستقلَّ لك المنى

بأسرارها أو يستتبَّ لك الأمر

What is striving, if hopes do not rise for you

with their secrets, or your affairs do not come right?

تمتَّعتَ من دنياكَ حتى تنكرت

عليك وجوهُ العمر وانقلب العمر

You took your pleasure from your world, until estranged from you

were the faces of life, and life itself turned upside down;

وحتى دعاك اليأس منها إلى الهدى

وليس الهدى إلا الحفيظةُ والذكر

until despair of it called you to guidance—

and guidance is nothing but zeal and remembrance.

فهل فزتَ من غاياتها بسوى الأسى

وكان الأسى ذخراً لو أن الأسى ذخر

So have you won from all its ends anything but sorrow?

Sorrow would have been treasure, if sorrow could be treasured up.

حبتك المنى أسرارَها وتواطأَت

لخدمتك الأيامُ وانقطع الغدر

Your hopes bestowed their secrets upon you; and together agreed—

the days—to serve you, and betrayal came to an end.

وعُدن كما أبدأنَ لا فيكَ مطمعٌ

بهنَّ ولا فيهنَّ عرفٌ ولا نكر

And they returned as they had begun: in you was no desire

for them, nor in them either kindness or wrong.

فأنتَ وهُنَّ الأمسُ واليومُ بالمدى

قريبان لكن دون لقياهما الدهر

Thus you and they—yesterday and today—across the span

are near, yet Time stands between the meeting of the two.

لقد أتعبتك الحادثاتُ وأجهزت

عليكَ ولا خير بهنَّ ولا شر

Events have truly wearied you and moved in for the kill

against you; yet in them is neither good nor evil,

سوى ضيق صدر أثقلتك همومه

وأن الليالي لا يحيط بها الصدر

only a straitened breast whose cares have weighed you down,

and that no breast can encompass the nights.

وأنت على الأيام تنشدُ راحةً

فيا جاهل الأيام راحتُكَ القبر

Yet through all the days you go on seeking repose;

O you who know nothing of the days: your repose is the grave.