Poem of Condolence

Each man, however long he lives,
Must sometime make the ground his home.

Death pursues us all,
The noble, the free, must endure.

Alas...of life and what it yields,
I wish my heart knew naught.

News reached me of this pain,
And prevented, tears, my eyes from sleep.

The highest mountain cannot defeat him,
The fiercest gale can never sway him.

Spent, oh Salman, a night exhausting,
From grief for our brother, departed.

A command, and whatever God for us ordains,
We accept, no matter what occurs.

Ahmed, the noble, of whom we are proud,
In Allah's care can never lose.

And you, his father, of noble birth,
Your home in the land long established.

For you, condolences from hearts tormented,
And for Fahad and his brothers, lions of Sharah.*

* Sharah - A mountainous region in the Arabian

Peninsula where the fiercest lions are said to live -

also means plentiful, generous.

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