XXVI: My black eyes have turned white, from the…

My black eyes have turned white, from the weeping of separation;
And again, have become coloured, from the blood of the heart.

I was wont to say, "Even yet, I will go and visit my friends;"
For I did not know that the time of their departure was fixed.

Some, like unto the moth, cast themselves into the fire:
Some, alive, like the nightingale, the glowing rose upon.

The abjectness of death hath come before the dead;
And the living become woe-begone, though yet in existence.

The soldiers of destiny have so put forth their hands to plunder,
That a thousand Khasraus and Shirins have been trampled to dust.

They who, in their gaiety, placed their feet upon the heavens--
Such tenderly nourished ones have now sunk into the grave.

They who were wont to repose upon ermine and velvets,
Without bed and without pillow now in the cold earth lie.

Why, then, should not the heart of Rahman be sorrowful,
When such numbers of his friends have been severed from him?