بكت معنا العلياء إذ فقدت معنا — Alshaghouri

Lofty glory wept with us when she lost Ma'n.

No word remained for the rhymes, nor any meaning.

The stars of noble deeds sank; shrouded was

the sun of glory there, eclipsed with grief.

Gone is the eloquent man, the fluent speaker at every gathering;

silenced is he whose words left eloquent speakers speechless.

After him, the camel calves of his houses grazed among the clan;

the roar of the stud camel who felled his rival ceased.

The days turned black for him, as though they were

night journeys, with daytime travel turned to travel late at night.

Dark of hue, grim of face,

we see in them neither beauty nor anything fair.

O his grave, how much glory and eminence you have gathered!

And how much anguish for him and sorrow we have lodged with you!

O his grave, you concealed his fingers,

which, when clouds begrudged life-giving rain, were themselves rain clouds:

keys to sustenance, clouds of blessings,

pouring upon the farthest of humankind and the nearest.

Whenever a supplicant and a fearful man came to him,

his supplicants gained their wishes, and the fearful man safety.

And how, having tasted the bitterness of losing him,

can we visit dwellings where no abode is dear to us?

I swear, Time has stripped off its white leg-markings,

and its forehead-blaze after him, and its right hand.

I wished that God had not created for me—when

the death-announcers brought me his news—an eye or an ear.

How many hearts they wounded, how many bosoms they burned,

by announcing Ma'n's death, and how many eyelids they made sore!

Too little for us is rending our collars in grief,

and pouring down tears, some of which carry ships.

For through him the world treated me kindly

and raised me through him to the loftiest station.

If the fates are my adversary, where is one

to repel their hooked fangs when I cry for help?

Do calamities mount a raid every day

against me, with one who never tires of striking and thrusting?

I think my heart is a basin for sorrows,

for from it their torrent has engulfed plain and rugged ground.

And Sa'd al-Dawla ibn Muhassin has died;

how can I see among people an equal to him—how?

Gone from my right hand is a sword that was keen,

and a pouring rain that lavished showers upon me.

It pains us, O father of generosity, that we

have lived on while death's hands snatched you from us.

You were none other than your people's towering fortress;

so after you, they find no fortress if they are wronged.

And you were their prestige and a firmly founded pillar;

for after you, they have lost both prestige and pillar.

Men wished you would die so that they might gain honor;

but far from it! After you they met humiliation and weakness.

Yours are the enduring good deeds among humankind;

so if you perish in this world, your memory does not perish.

Peoples will remember your place among them;

thereafter their constant habit will be to gnash their teeth.

The earth's belly used to envy its back;

but since you died, its back has come to envy its belly.

So, lover of this world, flee! For it,

when it makes peace, raids and reveals its rancor.

If ever you see a people whose great men have perished,

God will never accord them any weight.

Had valor warded death from him, they would have snuffed out

lives—the edges of keen swords and supple spears;

and a tumult would have flown to the day of battle,

from which lions shrink back, retreating in cowardice.

But it is death, which cannot be repelled if

it intends a raid among humankind, nor can it be diverted.