1. When will the East rise from its humiliation?
How long will it remain in its slumber?

2. It fell just as a steed falls with its rider,
While still in its prime.

3. It slept like one in utter despair,
Overtaken by hopelessness in his grief.

4. Its will is no longer able to stir,
Though once it was like a lion in its pounce.

5. Misfortunes have dragged on against it,
Engulfing it while in its neglect.

6. It has lost the glory it once had,
And forfeited the honor that was its own.

7. It no longer defends its own domain,
Nor protects what was once in its keeping.

8. Woe to you, O East, for the stumbling
By which the West rose from its own stumbling.

9. Once you were ahead of it by ages,
While it stumbled unsure in its pace.

10. To glory, when you shed its burden,
And as it fell short of your peak.

11. The West took lofty aims and grew proud
When people saw how low it had fallen.

12. It set its mind to the greatest enterprises;
To it they seemed simple and light.

13. It achieved what had baffled the achievers,
Undeterred by difficulty and toil.

14. Nay, it pursues its aims tirelessly;
Disasters but increase its strength.

15. When faced with an awesome event,
Men’s resolves quail from fear of it.

16. It summons obedient, rallying sons,
Multitudes hush at its call.

17. Honorable men, rushing headlong forth
Like sheep bolting out of their pen.

18. They strengthen the weak, tottering state
When time has sapped its strength.

19. They honor the noble, the generous,
Praising only his conduct and repute.

20. Wronging none, they judge justly,
Unlike those whose nature is tyranny.

21. None is raised above his rightful place,
Nor lowered from his proper worth.

22. Virtues have become flaws in the flawed,
For can a thing be good apart from its virtue?

23. The West adorned itself with them, gaining strength;
Blessings rained upon it and its ornaments.

24. Once it cowered in a pit,
While the East still slept in its own.

25. Oh how my heart longs for a vanished glory,
And how my soul yearns for its return!

26. Oh how our earliest forebears pined
For the East, should it remain in defeat.

27. They departed, leaving it a lovely garden
Whose charm souls pine for.

28. We abandoned it to ravages,
Heedless of harm to its sanctity.

29. Destroying its beauty, ending its joy;
Is any heed paid to cry of tomb-dwellers,

30. As the orator declaims in his sermon:
“Why this long slumber?”

31. After you grandeur faded away,
And every blame clung to your precincts.

32. You were men of mettle and hardy resolve;
Rise today and succor it!

33. Your spirits stern and unbending
Before which Epochs themselves grow gentle.

34. You snap the insolent aggressor’s bones,
You shield from his onslaught and fury.

35. By you the East will achieve its vengeance
And heal, saved from its misery.

36. May God water the dwellers of those tombs
With copious pouring of His mercy,

37. And console the Easterners for their lost glory,
And bless the West with its nation.