Elegy (Marthiya) on Imam Husayn (A.S.)

O Karbala'! Ever is your name sorrow (karb) and tragedy (bala)!
O what you brought upon the family of Mustafa!
How much blood flowed upon your soil when they fell,
And how many tears were shed there!
And how many a noble horse there was, weeping, its tears coursing,
Its cheek next to one perished of thirst,
Wiping the dust off its hooves
On the stain of a throat covered in blood!
These guests came to a barren plain,
And there was no food to be served them;
Nor did they taste water, until they gathered
At the edge of the sword, and the spring of death.
O murdered one, who struggled with death,
Without uttering an insult, without killing anyone!
And they washed him only with his own blood, shed by spears:
Shrouded him only with a shroud of dust.
Exhausted, he calls, while there is no help for him,
In the name of his benificent father, and his grandfather Mustafa,
And in the name of a mother for whom God has raised a standard,