يَقُولُ يَـٰلَيْتَنِى قَدَّمْتُ لِحَيَاتِى
Yaqoolu yaa laitanee qaddamtu lihayaatee
He will say, "If only I had sent something ahead for this life of mine."
Li-ḥayātī can be heard two ways, and commentators kept both: for the life now beginning, or during my lifetime, the one just ended. On the first reading the man has at last learned which of the two deserved the name. Qaddamtu names the act of sending supplies on ahead of a traveller, so his regret is arriving to find that nothing was sent on before him.