1. Forty, if only it could speak
It would tell us tales of your greatness

2. And tell how you took off from your nests
On the wings of desire when you left

3. On the day of parting you suppressed your pain
And hell's pain is lighter than parting's pain

4. The loved ones cried around you while your eyelids
Disobeyed crying, the grief of giants made them silent

5. Hands bidding farewell to a homeland and clan
And ambitions beyond the seas they handed over

6. Those villages became too narrow for their dreams
So you chose the vast world to dream in

7. And you invaded horizons with no provision for you
Except determination that burns and leaps

8. Like a lion that has no weapon in dens
Except its claws that do not break

9. You imagined the sea split for you to cross
And receded between the two coasts for you to arrive safely

10. And pearls lay hidden for you on its bed
So you could take them out and gain whatever you wished

11. And when the waves rose high and roared around you
It sang to dispel your worries

12. And when the stars shone in the darkness
The stars lit for you alone

13. And you reckoned the mountains as ladders
Erected for you to climb up so you climbed

14. And the sun is a bare celestial house
For the ambitious, and you, you, you are they

15. And how realities were clad in opinions
Like the mirage covers the land and deceives

16. So the longings in our souls could emerge
And we could wander around their homes and protect them

17. You did not settle like the inert whose
Life is but a drink and a meal

18. If your life were like theirs
Dignity would die fruitlessly and be destroyed

19. Yawning at night though lit up
Grumbling in the morning though smiling

20. If your heritage were like theirs
A neglected palace or crumbling temple

21. And talk of ancestors who are gone
So they equal in significance and their prestige

22. Who draws near yesterday distances tomorrow
And lives with the dead and becomes one of them

23. You disliked your days passing
As a lament of one who grieves and does not pity

24. Or your place lying on the ground
With insects creeping over it and spiders

25. So you sprang like bees, no flower
With nectar in it but has profit in it

26. In every shore a crocodile, in every dune
A lion, in every valley a wolf

27. Glory is your pursuit while you are yearning
And glory is your dream while you are sleeping

28. Nothing is difficult for you, even demise
Difficult for your souls is to hesitate

29. Oh few from a nation, it is a nation
In itself with a known form

30. In you are all its qualities and traits
As the garden contains fragrant, ripe fruits

31. The misguided criticized jihad against you
Chewed their fingers and did not perceive

32. Sought safety in sitting so it escaped them
The gain of wealth, yet even then they were not safe

33. They are worms of rottenness, better than them
And higher in life's view and wiser

34. They said they are elders whose time has aged
If only the youth learned from the elders

35. If you do not build like the ancients, you destroy
Or Baalbek, for you have not demolished

36. And how much is the tomorrow with its beauty and brilliance
And how precious the recent glorious past

37. I talked to myself as the train sped taking me
Wheels cutting through darkness and speeding

38. So I asked it wondering, and maybe
The knowledgeable asks what he knows

39. What is best of days, it said yours
And people, it paused and said you

40. And homes, it said yours, and money
It said the best of it is what you spent

41. And beauty, it said all you loved
And earth, it said wherever you settled

42. It was not complete, your day, perfected
Unless there was mourning at Jesus' cradle

43. And so life, its past and its present
Memories we delight in and memories that pain