Translated by A. Z. Foreman - Lament for Arbad lyrics

We perish and rot but the rising stars do not. When we are gone, mountain and stronghold stay. Once I was under a coveted neighbor's wing. And with Arbad, that protector has pa**ed away. I'll stand ungrieved, though Fortune force us asunder For every man is felled by Fortune one day. I am no more enthralled by newfound riches than grieved by aught that Fortune wreaks or takes. For men are like desert camps: one day, full of folk but, come the morn, a bare unpeopled waste. They pa** away in flocks, and the land stays on: a trailing herdsman rounding up the strays. Yes, men are like shooting stars: a trailing light collapsed to ashes after the briefest blaze. Men's wealth and kinfolk are but a loan of Fortune. All that is loaned must be at last repaid. Men are at work. One worker razes his building to the ground, and another raises something great. Among them are the happy who seize their lot, and unlucky others: beggars till the grave. If my Doom be slow in coming, I can look forward to ailing fingers clenched about a cane, While telling tales of youth and yesteryear, on slow legs, trying to stand yet bent with pain. I am become a sword whose sheath is worn apart by the years since smithing, though sharp the blade. Do not be gone!1 A due date for d**h is meted to all. It is yet to come... then comes today! Reproachful woman!2 When fine lads journey forth, can you reckon who of them shall return from the fray? Will you grieve at what fell Fortune wreaks on men? What noble man will disaster not waylay? No, by your lifeblood: neither the pebble-reader nor the auguress3 knows what fey things God4 ordains. If any of you would doubt me, simply ask them when a lad shall taste of Doom, or the land taste rains.