1. Your censure struck me with all those nights you counted against me,
So this yearning comes from that union,

2. And we don’t mourn you dead, you who remain,
Wishing you could be there in the end,

3. You were the light against the fading,
Yet you remain the undying light,

4. Teacher of every song of longing,
And guide of roses on winding paths,

5. Whom shall we heed if doubts arise,
When the son of eloquence falls silent?

6. You came to poetry, frail as it was,
With lands preceding it into ruin,

7. So you rejoiced composing scattered meanings,
Thwarted by madness from going astray,

8. You rebuilt, so the ode became your Baalbek,
When once it was but loose scattered threads,

9. You went beyond the first fruits of maidens
Slowly, with originality of old,

10. No hard task in the arena bested you,
No easy one in the arena misled you,

11. As if Beauty surrendered to you every secret,
And you became the subject of questioning.

12. We recalled while the lands were being assailed,
And the lands’ children were being assailed,

13. So the freeman has no life in any place,
No refuge but the sandy shacks,

14. And vileness loudly snarls and roils
Howling through the mountains,

15. The people’s bond is torn to shreds
And the face of truth is in the hands of the impossible,

16. We recalled one who speaks without flinching,
Proclaims loudly without caring when he proclaims,

17. Whom injustices wound wherever they befall
A neighbor, companion, or family,

18. The Sultan is no revered sultan,
And untruth is the glistening pinnacle,

19. You were redeemed, for from Lebanon you hail,
And Lebanon is the son of the most high Lord,

20. How often, how often did its people rebel
Against constant ancient wickedness,

21. How much they spent, how thirsty and hungry they were,
How much nobility and glory they shed,

22. We witnessed them witnesses, and we died
Yearning, gaining neither comfort nor wish,

23. When freedom is born and nurtured,
Your Lord, the Majestic, restores it.

24. He emerged from existence onto the horizons
And gathered the essence of the ideal individual,

25. He picked from the letters the eyes of light
Supporting each aspiration and conversation,

26. He hurried to the seas an engulfing tide
And inspired the south and the north,

27. So sails in every corner of the horizon
Waver, passing in thought,

28. And coasts distribute from their joy
Onto various shores and situations.

29. Lebanon mourned when you passed, a mind
Flowing to truth and beauty,

30. The heart that flooded the wilds with kindness
Of unending supply mourned,

31. Manners, the steed, mourned, morals mourned,
Sweetness, attributes, and qualities mourned,

32. Loyalty mourned, pacts and promises mourned,
However much time changes otherwise,

33. Culture mourned in knowledge and modesty,
And that casting in that majesty,

34. Messenger of a civilization that grew great
And rose in the west, imaginary,

35. Distilling its pure oils into wines
So light's wedding shone from shadow's wedding,

36. Oh, gently with the cedar's wound!
Gently with the wound that makes souls bleed!

37. You by Egypt's side when you were stricken
With what wounds the soul with arrows,

38. Homelands - how many sanctuaries they nurtured!
How they raised the worth of noblemen!

39. Whenever Egypt complained, tears rained
In Mecca, and the crescent's people drank,

40. And Egypt has the right to weep for you,
You who climbed from dawn to sunset,

41. For who elevated the edifice of glory there
As you built up a pavement of wonders?

42. And who, as countryman and neighbor, gifted it
With your past generous deeds?

43. Your hands - though never asked, generous hands,
Your view the lantern of darknesses,

44. You were generous until you became a refuge,
And the glory of the Nile peerless,

45. Your loyalty to intelligence was the loyalty of a freeman,
Your heart did not neglect your lands,

46. How can Lebanon neglect you, O pillar
Of the mountains' song?

47. Every branch speaks of your youth,
Hill turns to hill,

48. Brooks flow dreamily,
Valleys grow drunk remembering,

49. Fragrance is stirred in dreams of youth,
It leaves no tears for tenderness,

50. And youth reminds every color
Sighing over those heights,

51. Earth's longing for you overflows,
Seething in the sand's core,

52. O brother of great resolves, you shone in us
A father to sharpened talents,

53. If death is a reward for merit,
You were given your share of sublimity,

54. And you deserved rest, though a child,
Surpassing predecessors to perfection.