1. How many a generation before this faded away,
Alas, there is no way to immortality!

2. The youth laughed at the elders and drowned,
Then they awoke to find that they had become the elders.

3. We come and go while time endures,
The morn is a morn, and evening is evening.

4. Heat and cold erode our bodies,
Would that time changed as we change!

5. Change means withering for vegetation,
Death for the living, and shriveling for inanimate things.

6. Stand silently at the cemeteries, contemplating
As though you were a silent dead man asking questions.

7. Ask the planets how many peoples they saw before us,
And how many generations the stars have witnessed.

8. The world keeps changing and so do its people,
But God's command does not change.

9. O rising sun whose rising has dazzled eyes,
You too will set after rising, though now you know it not.

10. Be gentle and kindly to people's hearts,
For rancor in hearts against your brother is prolonged.

11. Look, the face of the earth is dusty and wan,
And listen, the winds are wailing.

12. Lightning comes from iron, from clouds rain,
And from blood, floods.

13. I did not know before the tumult arose
That beasts and men are alike.

14. O Europe, whose blood is this
That is shed every day, by you or for you?

15. Each day's news is appalling -
Brought by reporters terrified.

16. You have torn up your covenants and pacts
Into pieces as though they were Scripture.

17. You have unleashed ambitions, so hosts march
With more hosts and cavalry behind.

18. You have spread hatred, so there are cannon,
Shells, bayonets and lances.

19. Had your grudges not been your swords,
Their remains would be as those who submit.

20. You have taught Azrael in this tumult
What Azrael did not know before.

21. If this be what you call science,
Where then are ignorance and perversion?

22. If this be what you call religion,
Where then are unbelief and heresy?

23. Return to the age of ignorance - it is
A fine time to be called fine!

24. Sleep undisturbed, O Qabil the ancestor -
Each man wraps himself in his own tribe.

25. Do not glory in your minds and their products.
You had minds before the fighting began!

26. You are not you, nor are your teachers -
Those in whom luxury breeds and rests.

27. Do not with machines seek your livelihood
Or drive machines in seeking livelihood.

28. Though peoples speak in different tongues
And look different, if you but remember Qabil!

29. O our time, is there still some hope
Of peace, or does this misery go on?

30. Twice seven years have passed
And scenes of woe unfold.

31. It is not death that people love, but over minds
And reason, there are blinds.

32. I smiled when I saw you coming,
As the sick man rejoices when his friend returns.

33. And when I sink into despair, it is as though
The fettered captive is content with his chains.

34. Two men are not alike: this one's heart is empty,
And that one's heart is ignorant.

35. Let not the wise delude themselves -
The self-deceiver's heart itself is ignorant.

36. There are people in the East who have not unsheathed a sword,
Yet the sword hangs over their heads unsheathed.

37. They are ignorant, and their souls know no sorrow -
Most wretched of men is the knowledgeable wretch.

38. Their livers are wounded like their eyelids,
And their sighing is joined with their groaning.

39. As for hope - however long they live by it -
Tears testify that it is murdered.

40. Despair is death, except that its corpse
Remains, while despair itself disappears.

41. O Lord, misery has reached its climax,
Your mercy, for the merciful are few!

42. A band for God and the precious nation
Has dedicated itself, some being helpers others martyrs.

43. Were it not for their deaths striking the souls of the living,
Syria and the Nile would have revolted at their deaths.

44. O you who flee from Syria, remember
Those in Syria and around it who have come down.

45. States are anxious to strive, while you
Are anxious for the cackle of rumors and gossip.

46. Bestir yourselves and work for your country and your children.
Wretched is the idle and stagnant life!

47. Do not keep your hands clenched, for this is your day.
The worst of foes is the idle palm.

48. God has promised those who do good with goodness,
And as you know, His promise is not untrue.