1. I travel on Tuesday, if only I knew
What Tuesday will bring about

2. O iron gate, do you have immunity
To rely on, if I break a promise

3. I will return, O iron gate, and bend down
I did not know the extent of my affliction out of confusion

4. Tuesday is too dear to see
My passion for New Cairo depart

5. I return to it, like Asyut my kiss
When the passion stirs the shaking pillars

6. I returned and broke promises, and for passion
There are wonders that perplex minds and astonish

7. I returned to a soul, it is the soul, I
With its melody the life resumed and flowed

8. I returned to it, so I met with a charm
Noble like sunshine, nay it is more original

9. If its smitten lips sent a glance
It illuminated a world with its beauty

10. And if a gloom came over its gentle voice
The whisper of the wind transfers its melody

11. It whispers, whispers, how can I explain, I
Am helpless to depict it when it kisses

12. I imagined its cheeks with illusion, so it rebuffed me
Does illusion bring sin, O afflicted one

13. And its cheek, what a cheek, and the embers screaming
Quieter when extinguished and slowed

14. And its eyes, what eyes, and all magic
Is to its eyes a submissive slave pleading

15. A forehead the moon wished it could be like it
To ignite fires of passion and inflame

16. And a soul like the revelation of passionate poetry
That kisses once, recoils at times, and becomes aloof and kills

17. Nights pass and it remains angry, resentful
And nights go by and it remains tender and preferring

18. I converse with it upon meeting with awe
And could barely act if not for the awe of beauty

19. Blessed is the one who gave beauty authority
With which it acts unjustly in love at times and acts justly

20. A beauty that makes its perfume prevail
That captivates minds of repentants and makes sober

21. I am infatuated by its cheeks with cups of wine
It is pressed embers, and I proceed and perish

22. A beauty, the talk of love is its best drink
And it intoxicates wherever I flirt with it

23. I socialize with it while the cup is far
For in its soul there is a raging cup that reels and raves

24. It competes with me in my fervor and youthfulness
With gazelles that have a place of dwelling in the heart

25. But it is purer, more immaculate, more honorable
And more gentle than all beauty and more noble

26. With it, I became beautiful, home of youthfulness
And for the heart, in all playgrounds, a dwelling

27. Was there ever a beautiful one when I made it
Dwell and reside in the towers of Helwan?

28. I fear for it from it, if it gets angry
It seeks the ghosts of reproach and complains

29. Months passed while we were lovers
And every critic asks about my passion

30. Did the tattooers know where its place is
For they have been confused in assumption for long, probing

31. My heart asks me about it, and it doesn't know
That I am stingy with the secrets of youthfulness

32. So stop, O my heart, stop your asking, I
Am imprisoned from confessing, and like you, rational

33. If the All-Knowing God asked, I would conceal it
And deny I am killed by its love

34. I concealed from God my burning with love of it
May God forgive the pouring out, the confession recoils

35. We lived together one night, spirit to spirit
It is eternity distilled, and most delicious and beautiful

36. The night passed, we did not know its dimness, and did not say
Wait a little, O hasty one

37. And was I in a night, while the lights of its face
Dazzle, so the shining sun is eclipsed?

38. It craved the dawn, and time is prostrate
Happy that we are heedless of dawn

39. And I intended at dawn clearly for a journey
To a land where its people have a dwelling

40. So I bid it farewell, and my heart hopes for its return
Alas, I am hopeless, yet I hope and aspire

41. Messages, what are these messages, I
Sometimes greet them and sometimes kiss them

42. Letters like spring breezes, enchanting
Beauties glorified with fragrance and infatuated

43. Gardens of the light of beauty and a waft
Of scattered pearls the youth is granted

44. I read the two noble letters once
And a thousand and thousands though you are ignorant

45. I almost, when facing your handwriting, ride
My misguidance and wander reciting poems

46. I recite a book of passionate love
And for love in my soul there is a revealed scripture

47. Is this your handwriting or lines of masterpieces
Of tattoos on the beautiful body recorded?

48. Blackness, the blackness of a heart that longs for its light
And the doe's eye loves it and uses kohl

49. Is this your handwriting? Do not reveal my secrets
For you will be asked about my spilled tears one day

50. You promised me, no, I despair
Like Lobester, dreams and union are stingy

51. No, my house in Lobester is heaven
Upon which I revealed love and magic

52. I deserted you, O my house, for long months
And I am wronged, about wrong I am asked

53. I will return, but how, money is not abundant
And time is not heedless of warring with the lovesick

54. The house of Alexandria tries my return
To it, when, O house, I do not know

55. A passion prevailed, so it flooded my soul, and its wind
My lovesick gales with inferno kill it

56. A phone called for peace, I heard it
And in answering, news is forged and refined

57. I surrendered Japan, how did I surrender
So where is that rumbling and quaking then?

58. And their love of war, and time is for them
A raging hell extending wide

59. Lands from which safety is absent, so their command
Is to the mercy of fate when it shakes