1. Greetings to you, O Egypt of heroism
Home of glorious deeds, of the living and the buried

2. Your oasis of literature remains verdant
With genius flourishing in your midst

3. To you, O Egypt, go my gestures and yearnings
And the light of your resurgence guides me

4. I have familial ties in you that have not ceased
Once firmly established and strengthened

5. They dug the canal hoping it would distance me
Yet my ardour will build a bridge to unite us

6. I love Egypt but Egypt shuns me
Turning away from time to time

7. If she wept, she wept not out of sorrow, for she knew
And was certain that this grief makes me weep

8. I do not reproach her for the separation that
Seduces and teases me

9. Rather, I grieve for a love I fear that if
Lost, I will find none to console me

10. Amongst friends I boast, though if they perish
In friendships, I've none to comfort me

11. They said: "Your cure is in Egypt," though they despaired
Of me, my sickness defying any cure

12. I left behind a town Jacob left behind
Yearning for Joseph before me telling my tale

13. It takes me from the daughters of fire hissing
Enveloping me while estrangement's ember roasts me

14. It marches on the ways of steel raging
While the ember of longing melts and pleads for me

15. Until it raised for me palm groves on
The banks of the blessed Nile

16. Egypt descended and I thought she slept
In the shade of wings from her dark night

17. As if she and as if the night split open
With her light, a secret in an unconcealed breast

18. The Albikkiya dances through the nights
With tresses from all the winds

19. And light has glances in her seductions
As if they're the glances of a wicked breast

20. What business have I with the sickness I dread and ask
Of its doctor, and the pillar of faith will cure me?

21. If death sank its claws in me, it would suffice
For Oum Kalthoum to sing and revive me

22. This while Egypt is groves bedecked
Some blossoms of the groves

23. They entered arenas of diligence and play
And took the lead in every arena