پیش چه بود یاد مرگ و نزع خویش ** پس چه باشد مردن یاران ز پیش
What is (meant by looking) forward? To think of thy own death and last agony. What is (meant by looking) backward? (To remember) the predecease of thy friends.
نه ترا بر ظلم توبه‌ی پر خروش ** ای دغا گندم‌نمای جوفروش 1830
Thou hast (in thy record) no wailful penitence for thy injustice, O rogue who showest wheat and sellest barley.
چون ترازوی تو کژ بود و دغا ** راست چون جویی ترازوی جزا
Since thy scales were wrong and false, how shouldst thou require the scales of thy retribution to be right?
چونک پای چپ بدی در غدر و کاست ** نامه چون آید ترا در دست راست
Since thou wert a left foot (wert going to the left) in fraud and dishonesty, how should the scroll come into thy right hand?
چون جزا سایه‌ست ای قد تو خم ** سایه‌ی تو کژ فتد در پیش هم
Since retribution is (like) the shadow, accordingly thy shadow, O man of bent figure, falls crookedly before thee.’”
زین قبل آید خطابات درشت ** که شود که را از آن هم کوز پشت
(To him) from this quarter (Heaven) come (such) harsh words of rebuke that even the back of a mountain would be bowed by them.
بنده گوید آنچ فرمودی بیان ** صد چنانم صد چنانم صد چنان 1835
The servant (of God) answers: “I am a hundred, hundred, hundred times as much as that which Thou hast declared.
خود تو پوشیدی بترها را به حلم ** ورنه می‌دانی فضیحتها به علم
Verily, in Thy forbearance Thou hast thrown a veil over worse things (than those mentioned); otherwise (Thou mightst have declared them, for) Thou knowest with Thy knowledge (all my) shameful deeds;
لیک بیرون از جهاد و فعل خویش ** از ورای خیر و شر و کفر و کیش
But, outside of my own exertion and action, beyond good and evil and religion and infidelity,
وز نیاز عاجزانه‌ی خویشتن ** وز خیال و وهم من یا صد چو من
And beyond my feeble supplication and the fancy and imagination of myself or a hundred like me,