1. Since we parted, I have not tasted pleasure,
Oh God, what separation has done to us!

2. Tell those who blame that praise be to you,
Love has created torment for us.

3. I cannot forget her words that filled
My soul with sorrow and my being with melancholy.

4. What wrong did we commit that you left us?
Did we bore you and tire of our company?

5. I answered her with apologies:
You did no wrong, nor did I grow weary.

6. But I saw water flowing,
Irrigating, though it did not flow gently.

7. A sword, if worn too long in its sheath
Grows dull, and its edge becomes blunt.

8. Clouds, if they linger without raining,
Bring no valleys or gardens to life.

9. Life with stillness is misery,
While life with motion is joy and ease.

10. Do not blame me, for villages are places
Where life’s pleasures and desires abound,

11. Where stars shine bright in the open,
Uncovered by any veil or shroud.

12. Dawn’s pockets are full of fragrances,
Birds fill their songs in hidden nests.

13. Shadows dance over the hills,
The hand of the breeze strokes the branches.

14. But cities’ dwellers are like the dead,
Buried without a grave or funeral.

15. How often I asked its clouds for rain,
Yet they wavered, granting only trials.

16. How often I stayed up but found no moon,
And how often I sang but found no ear.

17. Had a caged nightingale loved cages,
The poet would have loved cities.

18. They disliked living there for so long
And invented carts and ships.

19. I managed to obtain a sturdy vessel
And sailed, traversing plains and sorrow.

20. Yearning drove me and I drove it
Until I reached a beautiful home.

21. Stop, oh train, over their lands,
For loved ones, oh train, are here.

22. These are their homes beckoning us!
No, these are our homes!

23. None of them occupied a place
That did not become a homeland for us all.

24. Syria is a tender melody in an oud,
Lebanon is fragrant and delight.

25. If the flowers of stars lose their light,
In these faces the stars find their radiance.

26. And if life concealed its beauty from me
And its bliss became torment,

27. I imagined them in my mind, and found
My world filled again with joy.

28. O people, today is your day,
Seize it and you will gain satisfaction and praise.

29. So extend your hands generously,
The clouds that are seized bring rainfall.

30. I see no youth like the miser
Wasting away and withering whenever he grows fat.

31. One who does not build with his money
Or benefit us with his wealth,

32. Who lives like a spider, despised and disgraced among men.
So build and construct, and you will be honored,

33. For one who strove for your sake and built.
A nation and people seeking refuge in you -

34. Will you abandon your people and nation?
Your children, O Cotton, have awakened today,

35. So stand tall and proud with your children, O Cotton.