Life Poem by Abdel Rahman Shokry

Life is but a continual dying,
goodness and pleasure are but borrowed.
Would that I were like the flower whose life is but a summer;
then I would fade before the afflictions of winter.
To life with its pleasures, from me, one greeting;
but ah, a thousand to peace-giving death !
Who will convey my greeting unto the dead?
Peace be upon them... nay , upon me:
For in their graves they have no need of mercy
as I do in my life.