1. A greeting from the cold of morning whose chill makes me shiver,
And tears that cannot be stemmed, oh Damascus!

2. Excuse the dialect and rhymes,
The calamity is too grave for description to match.

3. Memories stir feelings in my heart,
Thoughts of you forever pulsate within me.

4. The nights have wounded me with what they inflicted upon you,
Injuries that cut deep into the heart.

5. I entered while the roots were entangled,
Your face of beaming features so serene.

6. Beneath your orchards rivers flow,
Your meadows filled with leaves and plants.

7. Around me young men, morning's first light,
Excelling in merit and lead.

8. Poets of eloquence sparkle at their gatherings,
Orators of influence at their assemblies.

9. My poems are recited by transmitters, and wondrous in every place they reach,
The lions' noses twisted, their caves ignited.

10. Each freeman among the Umayyads cried out,
Noble and resolute against their grasp.

11. News reached the Caliph in succession, grieving his ears,
Detailed in his mail, summarized across horizons in his messages.

12. The events seem almost legendary,
Yet are in fact reality in their truth.

13. It's said the landmarks of history were obscured,
That they were damaged and burned.

14. Are you not, Damascus, the bosom-mate of Islam,
The nurturer of glorious leadership, steadfast.

15. Saladin's crown did not adorn you more beautifully,
No insignia made you shine brighter.

16. Every civilization rising on this earth
Has roots in your exalted soil.

17. Your sky is a book of bygone treasures,
Your land pages of history's manuscript.

18. You built the great state and the kingdom,
Civilizations' dust not dimming their brilliance.

19. In Syria its flags and weddings,
Good tidings reaching Andalusia's shores.

20. Eternity's meadows and the tales of their beauty,
Are they truer that they have faded?

21. Are the gardens' chambers still luxurious,
Does their bliss remain as before?

22. Where are the citadels' statues in their finery,
Scattered and torn covers?

23. They came out while fires blazed in the palace corners,
Chicks chirping behind the palace.

24. If safety was sort from one path,
Other paths led to death's door.

25. Nights of shelling and death,
Behind the sky, seizure and thunder.

26. When iron storms reddened horizons,
Darkening horizons on their fringes.

27. Greet whoever guarded your dignity after frailty,
Whose heart defied the stone's hardness.

28. And to the colonists, even if
Their hearts remain unmoved as rocks.

29. France struck you in its arrogance, a warlike
Dullard in its insolence and foolishness.

30. When freedom's seekers come to it
It says: 'A gang came out and rebelled.'

31. France knows that blood of revolution
Is light and truth.

32. In its land life once flowed,
As rain from the sky and bounty within.

33. A country whose youth died for it to live,
And vanished so their people survive.

34. Rivers flowed with the nations' freedom,
How then can their freedom be denied?

35. Sons of Syria, cast away your wishes,
Abandon your dreams.

36. For political tricks may fool you
With princely titles while in chains.

37. How the lowly seemed easy prey,
Bending like the crucified.

38. Rulers' favors come and go,
But the oppressed remain in shards.

39. I counseled though we differed in homes,
Yet we are one in worry and plight.

40. When homelands differ, unity of word
Brings us together in speech and call.

41. You stood between death or life,
If you seek this life's bliss--then tear it down!

42. In every freeman's blood nations have
A pledged hand and owed debt.

43. Who drinks and sates himself on death
While the free go thirsty--this cannot be justice!

44. Victims do not build kingdoms,
Do not draw near to rights or make them just.

45. For in the dead generations find life,
In prisoners, ransom and liberation.

46. To freedom's red dawn every blood-stained hand
Is a gate that will be knocked down.

47. May He of Majesty reward you, Damascus' sons,
The East's glory begins with Damascus.

48. You helped your brother in his ordeal,
Each brother helping his brother is but right.

49. The Druze were never evil folk,
Though blamed beyond what they deserved.

50. Yet protection of a guest,
Like the spring of purity, dirtied and disturbed.

51. They have a lofty mountain, with peaks and cliffs,
Wells in the clouds filled during the wet season.

52. For every lion cub and each young lion,
A struggle below its goal and path.

53. As if it carries something of the heavens,
Each of its sides noble and sincere.