I never realized how near I stood within their love
until the banners of fate flung me to the farthest bounds.

So mourn what has passed of a life once pure(1),
and weep over what has come to be, O my defiant heart.

Remember the fate of peoples: how, after sipping the purest water,
they drank from the goblets(2) of death.

They ended up in the earth, their faces decaying beneath the soil—
how immense the calamities!

And you, after them, are walking the very same road:
either to a dwelling of abasement or to gardens of bliss.

I now echo the words of the penitent servant
whom prison reduced, yet who persisted in piety and obedience:

I am the humbled one, the wretch weighed down with sorrow;
I am the pauper in need of the Lord of the heavens.

I am the broken, the destitute—O my Hope,
bestow Your favor upon me and pardon(3) my sins.

I am the stranger, with neither kin nor homeland;
I am the solitary one—be my support in my ordeals.

I am the lowly slave who has never ceased
to need You, my Master, in every condition.

I have no one but You, nor have I(4) any turning away from You;
Your remembrance lodged in my heart is my Qur’an and my verses.

You are able to mend me through Your nearness,
and You know the secrets of the unseen.

I call upon You, my Master, the One to Whom I pour out my grief,
O Restorer of my fractures, O Rescuer in my predicaments.

So look upon my estrangement(5) and have mercy on my wasting frame,
O Merciful toward creation, O Fashioner of all beings.

He remains ever needy at his Master’s door,
ever tried with tests and examinations.