A refuge you were for orphans, for wayfaring guests, for a widow who cast anxious glances for relief.
Time’s recurring blows—war after war, its womb still swollen with the next—found you standing firm.
O horseman, impetuous warrior—O Ḥamzah—you were the gracious, open-handed one,
shouldering our gravest ordeals whenever a crushing crisis struck.
You call to mind the Lion of the Messenger, our stalwart champion and defender,
counted among us whenever the noble, stalwart chiefs were tallied.
He towered above the loftiest heads in plain sight, hands supple, face radiant and clear;
never rash nor trembling, never held back by illness when burdens had to be borne.
He was an ocean whose tide of generosity never failed a neighbor—its streams and channels always full.
Gone are the youthful guardians of honor, the weighty men of judicious resolve,
those who fed others in the harshest winter, when no watering camel could be lined,
setting out the meat of sturdy camels, thick with fat cut into even strips,
so that they might shield their neighbor—no spite-filled enemy dared approach.
My heart aches for the youths we lost, lamps that once lit the way:
lofty nobles, eminent lords—magnanimous and forbearing—
men who purchased praise with their wealth, for praise is a bargain well won;
who leapt to their bridles the moment the war-cry sounded,
men whom an evil age assailed with its crushing blows.
Their mounts never ceased to trace tracks across dusty, barren wastes,
racing on while he rode among them, their chests streaming with sweat,
until the heights of honor returned to him—honor not seized by wanton slaughter.
O Ḥamzah, you have left me solitary, like a branch pruned by driving winds.
I pour out my complaint to you, though the rounded earth and stone slabs now lie above you—
stones the grave-digging hand piled high when it shaped your tomb well—
a spacious pit they packed with soil and smoothed with leveling palms.
Our only solace is that we can speak, though our words are scorching gales:
whoever is still bowed beneath the blows that fate has dealt
let him come—let his eyes weep for those dear ones snatched away—
men of word and deed, endowed with generosity and every praiseworthy trait,
whose palms will never cease to pour out bounty for as long as time endures.