1. They extended to you the nerves and fibers of the heart
And trod your steps with their eyelids and eyebrows

2. And nailed every rib of theirs
To each turning you crossed, erect with fatigue

3. And opened to you the doors of their chests, which
Seemed as if they had been locked up

4. If they were able, they would have illuminated
Your path in that darkness with flames

5. And sent the wind from their breaths honorably
To carry you on their breaths, hunchbacked

6. To touch from you a palm soaked
And kiss from you a face dried with yearning

7. And embrace that chest whose bones
Embraced the whole universe, however spacious

8. Are the causes of your family, O most faithful of them,
Insufficient for their causes?!

9. Look, you will find in people's eyes whatever love
That the bashful glance reveals its veils over

10. Whoever witnesses the outstretched necks to you
Sees from them a wondrous sight

11. Is every heart that holds from what you have called to
A case, so each is attracted by something of you?

12. Or is it the aura of glory that poured
Onto the forehead from the lights some dreams

13. And the most wondrous glory aimed at a resolve that crowded
The spheres of the sky, and a step that did not cease to grow

14. Your glory was not a flute you compose
And a lute that whirls around it enchanted

15. Nor the echo of cups whenever they are filled
Their sweetness overflows above them seeds

16. And you did not court the feet of the vile with what
Is inspired to you, and you did not erase sins for them

17. But I saw you storming their homes for eternity
Furious, raging, angry

18. You did not fear when you were a pillar of sand standing
That they would rob you, and is there anyone who robbed a pillar?

19. Until when they bridged the strait so roughly
And did not find, as they imagined, apparent or reed

20. Their roaring around its sand poured
Money, titles, and positions

21. They imagined the aura of the giant tree weighs it down
Those fruits so its rigid trunk bends

22. But every speck of sand refused
To drink, and the awe of the pole remained standing!

23. And which wing that you spread
Would alight except on a high place or above the clouds!

24. O Abu Furat, and the longing of the crowds will not cease
Expecting, and you will not cease to be expected

25. For fifty years their temples roared with
The flood of your hair which did not weaken or run out

26. By God, if Euphrates horses grew
Their flood pardoned that the Euphrates grew

27. Except you, O leader of the flood, no excuse
And no intercession if you do not branch out flames!

28. This is glory, outpacing, falling short
Of its least aims the endeavor of glory, however alert

29. This glory, pouring its veins stingily
So people drink from it fresh sweet water!

30. This glory, feeding the hungry from the flesh of its youth
While they are the most ardent of creatures, famished!

31. Every sea of the earth dries up except blood
You granted people that remains warm and wet

32. And its goodness, and quintessence, and essence
To the soul, mind and the throbbing heart

33. We, whenever you hinted, gestured with a thousand hands
Alerting with it our chicks still featherless!

34. O people of your family, O leader of their processions
How much they struggled, so you led the weary procession

35. You hurl it into rough terrain, its determination unchanged
And brave death, no knee bent to it

36. And where do you find a great one who uttered
A final verse, so he led in every house a stupid mob!

37. O uncle of Auf, and honor with the one who gave
What immortalized poetry the purest pearl and gift

38. Ask about your family, did their assemblies narrow
And the heart was not from what was said or written?

39. Did their inspired poet ascend a pulpit for poetry
Except you were a specter erected below it?

40. Until the heavy eyelids open
And the hearing listens, not to a spring or a raven

41. You have struck resounding bells
Leaving after them every composer absent!

42. They said you became estranged, do not their words reveal
When did you see the unique writer estranged?

43. When will this people understand that for us
In every populated part of our poetry there is lineage

44. You traveled dear when you left for us
The agony of the stranger mind and literature!

45. Ask Iraq, which you sang for, what was poured
And what was challenged, and what was defied, and what angered

46. Were there not from it mouths torn
Swelling, and the blood inflaming a house of yours?!

47. By Allah, no sun blessed its expanse
No cloud shaded it, no rain watered it

48. Except we heard a greeting from you send it
Across the seas, and a yearning response for it!

49. O granter of poetry from their eyes its light
And from wounds he suffers blood pouring

50. And from the destinies of children who
Their eyes ask from him without nearing a request

51. They turn upon embers they feed
From the flesh of his flanks, those fine faces

52. Hoping the wind would ignite its sparks
To turn for lasting goodness a cause

53. I believed you were the purest kindlers by hand
When you willfully left for a fire you gathered wood!

54. O uncle of Auf, you have provoked its flame
Alas, if it dims, and alas if it dies out!

55. A fire we devoted our ribs to, perturbed
Until its flames hugged our chicks

56. And we continued struggling toward it feverishly
Despite the harm of it being a mother and father to us!

57. O uncle of Auf, have we panicked for a final verse
From what we suffer, either sluggish or fleeing?

58. Woe to my hand that I orchestrate a letter
And I do not see some of my life above it erected!

59. So if I tear from a sigh that defeats
My patience, then pardon the patience that was defeated!

60. O uncle of Auf, are scattered papers
These hearts we diverge from each other nerves?

61. The fertile oasis uncovered, ravaged
And the progeny of that pasture withered

62. And doubt cut the means we take refuge in
In a storm that left no tent peg remaining

63. O uncle of Auf, and most disturbing what troubles us
Is calamities among us arouse suspicion

64. Every day we have a wound we open
To lick the blood that shows enmity however faded

65. Blood may pour, calloused the hand of its pourer
But more potent than the killer is who drank!

66. Hearts that were inhabited by the light of affection
Became darkness, I do not say ashes

67. But I see the slap of hatred, no eyebrows
Between us frowning at it

68. O uncle of Auf, support me if I stumble, for
The smooth may become radiant even if not struck!

69. You showed me your flint so I burned with it
Twenty years, patient, towering, pale

70. And I am your eaglet the vulture carries
On its two mighty wings if weary