1. O Abu Al-Hol, time has been long upon you,
And you have reached the farthest limit of age upon earth,

2. Yet neither has time become youthful nor have you transcended the bounds of youth,
With your riding the stretches of sand,

3. At the galloping of the noble steed and the rushing of dawn,
Traveling through the generations,

4. When will you shake off the dust of travel?
Between you and mountains, O pyramids, is an appointed time,

5. When you will both pass away.
O Sphinx what is there after existence

6. If perseverance itself grows weary?
I wonder at Luqman in his greed

7. For rags and vultures and the like,
And Labid's complaining of longevity

8. When, had it not been long, brevity itself would have been cause for complaint.
O you, offspring of granite peaks,

9. Had you possessed the means you would have joined your Maker on high.
For life makes iron rust

10. When exposed thereto, and wears down rock.
O Sphinx, in perplexities you are lost,

11. Thought in you has lost its way.
The nomads wondered what you might be

12. And city folk strayed in the vales of guesswork.
To them you were the form of defiance,

13. You were the exemplar of sagacity and sight.
Your secret in its veils whenever

14. Conjectures peered upon it withdrew.
Save for the head of a man

15. On the torso of beasts they pictured naught.
Had they fashioned you in diverse aspects

16. They would have draped on you all imagery.
O Lord of a face pure as polished metal,

17. Where face and bearer are as one!
O strange and wondrous Sphinx, with time

18. Naught is trivial nor to be disdained.
You mocked time turning night to day

19. So its cock picked out your eyes that it might take revenge,
It asked away your whiteness and stole your blackness

20. And its beak penetrated into your hollows.
So you became like one whose gaze was veiled,

21. A throng whose looking was despoiled.
As though the sands enshroud your sides

22. And sins of men lie before you,
As though amidst them you're a banner of space

23. Raised on earth, or the well-trod fateful path,
As though you were the sands' companion seeing

24. Through the lines secrets and hidden things.
O Sphinx, you are time's boon companion,

25. Its intimate, the comrade of the age.
You stretched out your arms from Adam on,

26. And turned your face towards the throngs.
You look out on a world that comes to be

27. And watch o’er a world fading unto death,
So one eye is unto him who appears in life

28. While the other speeds what turns to dust.
Then speak! For speech may offer guidance

29. And tell! For stories may give comfort.
Did you not see Pharaoh in his glory

30. Aspiring to the sun and moon?
He was the shade of civilization in early days,

31. Lofty of building, great of renown,
Establishing in earth lasting works for those to come

32. And planting for later ages fruits to reap.
Yet how the hoofs of his prancing horses

33. Struck fire out of the stones in their galloping,
Ships of war reducing lands to ashes

34. As the torrent sweeps along the heaviest rain!
And you saw Alexander in his prime

35. Though stealing on him was the withering of youth.
In Egypt the garland of his kingdom withered;

36. No more for him lingered the springtime of rule.
And you witnessed Caesar, how he tyrannized,

37. And humbled in Egypt palace and throne,
How oppressive his henchmen were,

38. Driving the nations like asses with a prod,
And how a meager brave company of warriors

39. Overcame his teeming hordes at the final hour;
How Caesar's crown was cast like fragile glass

40. And the hosts were put to headlong rout, his feasts dashed to the ground.
So let each tyrant be, for Time will mete out justice,

41. Time sets aright the balance and brings low the lofty height.
You have seen religions in their teachings

42. And when their authority disintegrated and decayed.
Mansions were erected to them like citadels

43. When attention to them diminished and waned.
Creeds were founded, and - like mountains' trunks -

44. Set firm and stable.
Behind their temples Isis held sway

45. While kings bared themselves to her and put aside their veils.
She illuminated heaven's expanses

46. And in the lands her idols shone like stars.
Learned and ignorant thronged to worship Osiris;

47. To some minds crooked creeds prove hard to follow.
By them life's riddles are interpreted,

48. The blissful Garden is promised and Hell-fire is feared.
Men feel this alone, unmindful of aught else,

49. Even should eons pass and go unnoted.
Abu Musk's slave outweighs Abd

50. Even though Ahmad therein molded peerless pearls.
You saw Moses and his ark,

51. The gleaming staff and tablets twain.
And Jesus drawing on the cloak of modesty

52. While Mary gathers up her trailing gown.
And Amr leading the Companions into Egypt

53. To chant the Holy Book and sing its verses.
How then did you view true guidance and error,

54. One life that passes and the next that bides forever?
When Muqawqis renounced his debauched behavior

55. And Muqawqis embraced the morn of guidance.
How the darknesses of error he transformed

56. Into daybreak through wise governance.
How he reconciled the Copts and Muslims

57. As kinsmen bind themselves in a firm relationship.
O Sphinx, had you not been a sign

58. You would have been for steadfast loyalty a lesson.
Upon the paired pyramids you gazed and gazed

59. Like a fond mother who cannot forget.
You hoped their builder would return

60. When the ravaged cannot come again.
With one eye you surveyed the empty homes

61. And cast the other o'er the open river.
You eyed Manuf's Lake with its swimming ducks

62. And the crops of Giza and the shrouded moon.
Where once the lofty station of knowledge stood -

63. When arts flourished of weighty import and sublime danger -
You discerned only a village

64. Whose charms are lost in utter stagnation,
Which, as the globe revolved around it, seemed

65. As though it knew not motion or did care.
Is there one to convey for us the principles

66. By which the branches too were guided,
That we sought glory's lofty star

67. And offered for it our soul's blood and tears,
That we embarked upon affairs' billowing sea,

68. And we arrived for the conference prepared
With every frank negotiate and wise counselor

69. Of expansive views and penetrating thought,
Demanding rights for a folk whose blood

70. Flowed out before these rights were realized,
Who prided themselves on their laws, not their fleets,

71. So naught remained for you to preserve but tell the tale!
Move, O Sphinx! For everything now moves,

72. Even solid rock cannot resist Time's power!
Speak, O skilled Sphinx! For the hour has struck,

73. And destiny awaits you. Rouse and rise!
I have kept hidden a treasure your people will cherish:

74. Not even granite equals it in hardness.
I possess the sovereigns themselves, not empty forms,

75. I preserve their deeds, not the ruins and mere traces.
Let the darkness of despair retreat before the rising dawn of hope!

76. This is the awaited moment of destiny.
Today we cultivate our valley anew,

77. Revive the glories of days gone by.
By our own hands triumph is built,

78. A homeland we ransom and that will ransom us.
A homeland rightly guided that we support

79. And in God's eyes guide aright.
That we improve and beautify

80. Through our achievements and strivings,
Making Egypt the world in splendor,

81. Egypt the cosmos in its grandeur!
History's mystery and core,

82. Epoch's throne and tribune,
Gardens of immortality and its Kauthar,

83. Sires suffice us as exemplars.
We'll make the sun our crown,

84. Its dawn our seat, a burning throne.
The sky's glittering host our citadels,

85. As our forebears built and fashioned.
The age beholds you, and the nations,

86. The pyramids peering, and the Sphinx rapt in reflection:
O lads of Egypt! Rouse your spirits!

87. Rebuild, as did the ancients raise their monuments!
Striving unceasingly, ever striving

88. For glory's summit and highest place,
Making Egypt our entire world,

89. Making Egypt our entire world!