صبرا لحكمك صبرا

يا مانح الكسر جبرا

Patience with Your decree, patience,

O You who grant mending to brokenness.

فما تعاظم خطب

إلا وأجزلت أجرا

For no calamity has grown overwhelming

without Your lavishing reward.

أي الخطوب توازي

خطبا أتى اليوم قهرا

What calamity could equal

a calamity that came today with crushing force?

فيه ابتليت بفقدي

أبي فأصبحت صفرا

In it I was tried by the loss of

my father, and was left bereft.

أبكي الحنان وأبكي

بكى لأجله مرا

I weep for tenderness, and I weep

bitter tears for his sake.

دم الأبوة فيه

دمع البنوة أجرى

The blood of fatherhood in him

made the tears of sonship flow.

أعظم لرزئه رزءا

مذ غاله الموت غدرا

How great a calamity his loss is,

since death treacherously carried him away.

ما العيش إلا هواء

قل كيف يحسب عمرا

Life is nothing but air;

say, how can it be counted a lifetime?

والحي فيها عليل

حتى إذا مات يبرا

And the living person in it is ailing,

until, when he dies, he is healed.

إما بكيت لميت

فالحي أولى وأحرى

If ever you weep for one dead,

the living are worthier and more deserving.

تبكي الشمائل منه

إذ بافتقاده تعرى

His noble qualities weep,

for his loss has left them bare.

كمثل من قد بكينا

وسوف نبكيه دهرا

Like the one we have already mourned,

and shall mourn for an age:

أبي أعز فقيد

علي في الناس طرا

my father, the dearest of the departed

to me among all people.

وفاته يوم سبت

في أول العام شهرا

His death was on a Saturday,

in the year's first month.

عشرون يوما تقضت

منه وخلف عشرا

Twenty days had passed

of it, with ten still to come.

فأشبه الأم موتا

يوما وشهرا وقبرا

Thus he resembled my mother in death,

in day, and month, and grave.

إذ قبرها صار شفعا

وكان قبله وترا

For her grave became one of a pair,

having stood alone before him.

كلاهما في سرور

ورحمة الله تترى

Both of them are in joy,

and God's mercy comes unceasingly.

وكيف والجار عبد

العزيز بالفضل أدرى

And why not, when their neighbor is Abd

al-Aziz, who knows grace best?

أمسى أبي له ضيفا

وحسبه ذاك فخرا

My father has become his guest,

and that is glory enough for him.

بشرى لضيفه بشرى

بشرى لمنجيه بشرى

Glad tidings for his guest, glad tidings!

Glad tidings for his deliverer, glad tidings!

من عترة الخرنداري

ذاك الذي كان صدرا

Of the lineage of al-Kharandari,

that man who was chief minister.

ورب ذا الرمس ثاني ال

أبنا وأشهر ذكرا

And the occupant of this grave was the second of the

sons, and the most renowned.

قد كان أطهر عرضا

وأشرف الآل قدرا

He was the purest in honor,

and the noblest of the family in standing.

تلو الدين مطيعا

يبدو والله برا

Following the faith in obedience,

he appeared, by God, righteous.

قد عاش فيها شريفا

وفي ضميره حرا

He lived in this world nobly,

and free in his conscience.

تدرج الفضل فيه

حتى استتمه بدرا

Excellence grew in him by degrees,

until he brought it to fullness—a full moon.

في دولة الناصر اسما

قل زاده الله نصرا

In the reign of him named al-Nasir—

say: may God grant him greater victory—

أمير تونس أسنى ال

بايات شأنا وعصرا

the ruler of Tunis, the loftiest of the

beys in standing and in reign.

أعد فيه انتمائي

بالوالد اليوم برا

Here I count my claim of descent

through my father, today, as filial devotion.

إن غاب شخصه عني

ما غاب واللّه فكرا

Though his person is absent from me,

he is not absent, by God, from my thoughts.

قد كان بي ذا اعتناء

ينسر إن قلت شعرا

He was so attentive to me,

delighted whenever I recited verse.

فعز فيه رثائي

وكان أوحش ذكرى

So grievous was my elegy for him,

and it was the bleakest remembrance.

يا زائر القبر فاقرأ

له الفواتح عشرا

O visitor to the grave, recite

al-Fatiha for him ten times.

وانثر عليه دعاء

مما تلوته زهرا

And scatter prayers upon him,

blossoms from what you have recited.

وأنشده عني وأرخ

دنيا حمدت وأخرى

And recite to him on my behalf, and mark the date:

"Praised were you in this world, and in the next."