1. I stood one morning on the Nile’s bank, standing
In such a way that none would stand but a poet over his Nile,

2. He swayed to and fro until his conscience almost showed.
And he frowned until his appearance almost formed.

3. There was a majesty filling the soul with awe,
And a majesty filling the eye with its splendor.

4. Sometimes I turn my eyes to its pages,
And sometimes I turn my gaze to what neighbors it.

5. I notice the sun of the horizon while still rising
With its shadow accompanying it as it accompanies the sun.

6. So I reckon it shares with me passion in it
And passion reckons me sharing with it.

7. When it casts its light on the margins
Its beholder sees the sand flowing in the margins.

8. It gazed at it for so long as if
It is trying to perceive its secrets from it.

9. O how intimate they are, spending the night alone!
It harbors for it from its love what it harbors.

10. The moist breeze blows gently through its sides
Caressing it once and again conversing with it.

11. And it closes its outpourings from its expanse
As he who spread the embroidered garment closed it.

12. So it palms off from it while still flowing, broken up
As if an enemy is feared in the breeze.

13. It is as if I see in it a book whose lines are close together,
Its beginnings have been formed and its ends.

14. If its symbols become clear to beholders
The past and present of time will become clear.

15. O Nile, tell me the stories of those who passed away;
Perhaps what you remember may heal the soul.

16. Beside you stands a youth beset with sorrows,
His senses mortgaged to worries and thoughts.

17. He complied with passions, had he complied with his heart
Its dormant passions for her would have overflowed.

18. Time drives each misfortune to me hastily
As if I am its butt.

19. And I am not the slave who fears the stick,
But I am free, startled by its beginnings.

20. O Nile, so grant me strength for truth,
For none but the ignorant disparage it.

21. Grant me prowess that makes time humble before it,
For long has it snorted against me.

22. If you do not support the grieved against sorrow
Then forsaking or supporting him are equal.

23. Provide me with prowess and protect your weak people
Who avoid and do justice to those who deny it.

24. It is time, of two opposites: humiliation and honor,
So whoever is humiliated complains it and whoever is honored thanks it.

25. For the powerful past decisiveness is sweet
And for the weak inept hesitation is harmful.

26. People are only those capable of high ideals,
And kinds of birds are only their predators.

27. Do you not see that since his vein was softened
Misfortunes have walked to him, accompanying him?

28. So he was burdened until his talk is unclear
And restricted until his thoughts cannot flow.

29. Had they controlled fates, he who
Owns sovereignty would pardon him whom he enriches.

30. They would not have left the sun of daytime to visit him
With its radiance, nor the flowers of stars to accompany him.

31. They want him to remain while his glory departs,
And how can people’s survival continue if their glories

32. fade?
So Gour itself turned against Egypt to aim

33. Its arrow at it while the hunter of beasts helps it.
They assist in oppressing it, so if it complains,

34. They cry that its people have rebelled against it.
They really ridiculed when some of it woke up,

35. So why did they panic when the rest of it woke up?
They say he is mad, impossible to set free,

36. And had they been just to him, his family would bear the sin.
I wondered at people who deny its feelings

37. When its fields and those are its manifestations.
Was it not steadfast on the day of the Canal

38. As evidence that its conscience is not corrupt?
It is hard for Egyptians to bear harm

39. And their present refuses humiliation while their past does too.
If history is adorned, by God,

40. Then the adornment of history is only its glories.
May God protect those of its sons who defend

41. Its sanctuary and of its guests those who support it.
They revived new life in me

42. So I held its ropes tightly and its bonds grew strong.
And they made the days hear a voice as if

43. It is thunder reverberating in the sky with all its growling.
And they unleashed their pens when their pens

44. And their ink pots were shackled.
Thus if the brother of injustice lacks a supporter