Another year has passed, my love,
And now it's twenty five:
The total years our marriage has
Been true, and been alive.

We've moved a dozen times in all,
And shared good times with bad.
We've traveled many thousand miles.
Adventures, we have had.

Nine children have been born to us,
And one grandchild, as well.
We're in McLean three years by now.
It seems like quite a spell.

My job has separated us
Each year from time to time.
Let's hope New York will be the last
Occasion for such rhyme.

Two things are contrary to reason: to enjoy more than is decreed and to die before the time appointed.

Fate will not change by a thousand laments and sighs,
By thanks or complaints, issuing from the mouth.
The angel appointed over the treasures of wind
Cares not if the lamp of a widow dies.

Property is for the comfort of life, not for the accumulation of wealth. A sage, having been asked who is lucky and who is not, replied: ‘He is lucky who has eaten and sowed but he is unlucky who has died and not enjoyed.’

Pray not for the nobody who has done nothing,
Who spent his life in accumulating property but has not enjoyed it.

Moses, upon whom be peace, thus advised Qaroon (Korah): ‘Do thou good as Allah has done unto thee.’ But he would not listen and thou hast heard of his end:

A pious man happened to pass near a rich fellow who had a slave and was just chastising him after having tied his feet and hands. He said: ‘My son, God the most high and glorious has given a creature like thyself into thy power and has bestowed upon thee superiority over him. Give thanks to the Almighty and do not indulge in so much violence towards the man because it is not meet that in the morn of resurrection he should be better than thyself and put thee to shame.’

Be not much incensed against a slave.
Oppress him not, grieve not his heart.

In the exuberance of youth, as it usually happens and as thou knowest, I was on the closest terms of intimacy with a sweetheart who had a melodious voice and a form beautiful like the moon just rising.

He, the down of whose cheek drinks the water of immortality,
Whoever looks at his sugar lips eats sweetmeats.

I happened to notice something in his behaviour which was contrary to nature and not approved of by me. Accordingly I gathered up my skirt from him and, picking up the pieces of the chess-game of friendship, recited:

I never lamented about the vicissitudes of time or complained of the turns of fortune except on the occasion when I was barefooted and unable to procure slippers. But when I entered the great mosque of Kufah with a sore heart and beheld a man without feet I offered thanks to the bounty of God, consoled myself for my want of shoes and recited:

‘A roast fowl is to the sight of a satiated man
Less valuable than a blade of fresh grass on the table
And to him who has no means nor power
A burnt turnip is a roasted fowl.’

I heard that a dervish, burning in the fire of poverty and sewing patch upon patch, said to comfort his mind:

‘We are contented with dry bread and a patched robe
For it is easier to bear the load of one’s own trouble
than that of thanks to others.’

Two sons of amirs were in Egypt, the one acquiring science, the other accumulating wealth, till the former became the ullemma of the period and the other the prince of Egypt; whereon the rich man looked with contempt upon the faqih and said: ‘I have reached the sultanate whilst thou hast remained in poverty as before.’ He replied: ‘O brother, I am bound to be grateful to the most high Creator for having obtained the inheritance of prophets whilst thou hast attained the inheritance of Pharaoh and of Haman, namely the kingdom of Egypt.’

The life of a king was drawing to a close and he had no successor. He ordered in his last testament that the next morning after his death the first person entering the gate of the city be presented with the royal crown and be entrusted with the government of the realm. It so happened that the first person who entered was a mendicant who had all his life subsisted on the morsels he collected and had sewn patch after patch upon his clothes.

Despite the abundant admonitions of the most illustrious Sheikh Abulfaraj Ben Juzi to shun musical entertainments and to prefer solitude and retirement, the budding of my youth overcame me, my sensual desires were excited so that, unable to resist them, I walked some steps contrary to the opinion of my tutor, enjoying myself in musical amusements and convivial meetings. When the advice of my sheikh occurred to my mind, I said:

‘If the qazi were sitting with us, he would clap his hands.
If the muhtasib were bibbing wine, he would excuse a drunkard.’