How vast the gulf between a lion of the wilderness and a fox, how wide the distance between the ravenous falcon and a paltry cricket (1).

Give your mounts a respite; do not be like one who tries to snare the stars from stagnant pools.

He had been a radiant sun for his companions; by its light we found our path in every land.

Yet today that sun has suffered an eclipse, and the roads of guidance are dark for the hesitant wayfarer.

Alas for those noble traits, that unstinting generosity, that straight and most rightly guided way!

Death has descended; there is no sanctuary for the fugitive, for in this world mortality lies in ambush.

The loyal friend has died, the foe you once opposed has died, and you will die like them—indeed, as though it had already come to pass.

When the peers of your own age have departed, await the herald of death—if not today, then surely tomorrow.

Still, every loss of a dear companion is softened for us by remembering the calamity of our master, the Prophet Muhammad,

may Allah bless him whenever the vigilant, devout worshipper’s eyelids forgo the comfort of sleep.

Completed (2); its total is fifty-six verses.

He also—may Allah, in His mercy, pardon them both (3)—composed:

No eye that weeps forever, nor a heart that melts and aches, can ever reach the measure of this bereavement.