1. Your eyes with tears - like clouds - harmonize
And the fire of your passion in the entrails kindles

2. So will the tears of the eyes extinguish the fire of sorrow
As grief with blood extinguished the deceased?

3. It extinguished and revived the dead after prolonged sorrow
So will dreams with your tears - like it - revive?

4. And will it bring closer horizons it aspires to
Or will it bring back the one whom death has embraced?

5. Yes, it brings back to us a trace of his specter
And sorrow evokes dreams from its sufferings

6. We cry to extinguish a fire that blazed in the entrails
And how can we express when speech is constrained?

7. And in tears is an expression that cannot be matched
By the tongue's speech or what the pen depicts

8. What did this age see in you when it transgressed
Against you unlike all other people out of vengeance?

9. Did it see you too proud to submit to it
And its greed could not make you grovel?

10. You did not bow to the unjust pleading
That they may have mercy on you.. Nor sought their kindness

11. No whip from its hand fell on you
Except it saw you smiling whenever it intensified

12. While the oppressed and dispossessed people around you
Take refuge in silence from the whip and hold fast

13. Saying: I am helpless.. and all the people
Are like me.. weak and my sword has rusted

14. We live on the periphery of life so we are in it
The most humiliated group that walks in it

15. The course of all creation is towards progress except
My people.. their course is backwards

16. Earth and history cried: Woe to them!
Had they had faith in God they would not have been defeated

17. The tongue went astray, tears went astray, and
Your pens today fell .. As did the wise sayings

18. All languages are helpless before silence
In expressing.. So their existence equals nothingness

19. The most eloquent of people is the mute
And the wisest of people is the deaf

20. What is the use of my brother's logic
When both Arab and non Arab are equal in speechlessness and confusion?

21. The inarticulate became the master of eloquence.. if
He said a word so all the world's people are silent

22. When he spoke, people contended
Interpreting, confused by it, and arguing

23. While the true poet - no ear pays heed to him
A burden.. And he has no kin among people

24. He walks lonely, shunned, with no helper
Except rhyme, prolixity, and saltiness

25. And the fake poet is smug in his fame
Surrounded by companions, servants, and protectors

26. If poetry had rule over them, they would be equal
When rogues are equal in honor and vileness

27. How many free women were taken captive from their noble homes
But the freeman is free even if the slaves betray him

28. Poetry is poetry even if his nation abandons it
The inarticulate is inarticulate even if nations follow him

29. They gave poetry other than its rightful place
And its crown was worn by those who were not worthy of it

30. And people unrelated to eloquence claimed connection to it
So people accepted their words

31. How many free women were taken from their homes of honor?
The free person remains free even if slaves turn on him

32. Poetry remains poetry even if abandoned by its people
The inarticulate remains inarticulate even if nations follow him

33. My master of poetry, do not grieve.. If hearts turn
Away from you to those whose prosody is flawed

34. This age and its people are brothers of sickness
Can one whose heart is diseased discern truth?

35. And for one in whom sickness resides, his food
Is bitter.. Even if morsels are sweet for others

36. Create your ode - do not grieve if they are repulsed
Their ignorance may repulse people from what you say

37. And write for a generation to come.. after their death
When people crave poetry like their craving for Jesus

38. Where people are ruled by nothing but their reason
And nothing preoccupies them but high ambitions

39. So write for that one and leave people their time
And be content.. Every famous one in it is suspect

40. And leave one hostile howling for the free are tested
And the slave avenges his master with hatred