1. My passion, for which blame I bear unashamed,
Don't censors know that passion rules the heart?

2. If asked, "What is Egypt's love?" say it's my soul,
My heart, my being, my breast that feels the smart.

3. My soul it is! My faith, if I keep faith with her.
But, if betray, dishonor me athwart.

4. I fear, I hope, my fear and hope the bounds
Of dread and wish no hiding can subvert.

5. My life and death, whom I despise and cherish!
My wealth and want, my calm and dread convulsions!

6. Fate, pleasure, wrath, religion and world’s gain!
People and time and turning revolutions!

7. So we believe. Blame not our hearts that to her
Give faith. Yours the unfaith, if you assert.

8. In it did revelation pour its streams
Of verse, by Nile whose floods are but pure verse.

9. Describers are bewildered by its charm,
Its qualities so various none can rehearse,

10. A chief with crown, a people’s poet he,
A genius, perfect bard none can traverse,

11. As kings and warriors who affright mankind,
Sa‘d and ‘Amr, wild battle's meteor’s disperse.

12. When Nile's pure water fills a drinking throat,
Betraying it, no excuse his sons can proffer.

13. God's pact it is, the prophets' ancient troth.
To keep it, pious act; to break, a stir.

14. Whoever seeks betrayal and expects
Fair guerdon, grossly errs in his demur.

15. To love it, blessing; serving it, God's grace;
Its goodwill, gain; its favors, benefits confer.

16. Each has his reckoning; none exceeds his worth.
No good or evil changes just deserts.

17. I see the youth has matter to settle fast
Before his death. Dies he, it is deterred.

18. Full oft a band breathes its last breath and dies
Ere comes renewal or the time of mustering.

19. Do nothing but good! Choose what is most choice,
Whose first is praise, and end reward deferring.

20. I paid Egypt's sons their wage and succor due.
So pays the valiant freeborn his own folk.

21. Their due o'er me; mine o'er them passion's reign.
My life between the two hard-pressed and spurring

22. Forty life-sorrows have I lived. And yet
Fifty may strain me from their flood recurring.

23. Whose thoughts are bent on bettering humankind
Has ever cares, each hour renewing.

24. Happy whose life humility did guide,
Though nothing owned he, nothing losing!

25. Grief-plunged am I and drowned in seas of care.
No patience makes the billows less perturbing.

26. My censurer! Let my soul its fancy take.
Grief is the free man's cage, his curb and curbing.