1. On which gardens are we passing,
And in which gardens are we settling?

2. Go slowly, O greatest ship!
You have taken us to spacious lands, so you are free.

3. You stayed up while the people slept
As if their boredom and where to did not bother you.

4. The sea waves urge your pace, or even two seas,
No, it is the Ibreez, no, it is a wider horizon.

5. On something like plains amidst the waters
The islands surround you like gray-haired elders,

6. And you are for them an alert, attentive shepherd
Who returns with the darkness and does not flee.

7. The moon floats above you in the haze,
Lofty in highness without end,

8. Your eyes meet as if destined to unite,
While below the meeting lies the universe and time.

9. Until it was said this is the Dardanelles,
So you sailed to it while dawn was the guide

10. That allowed you safe passage through it.
For if it did not allow, the water was wine.

11. You pass the fortresses and mountains
With one height above another, behind a high peak,

12. Whenever it gestured, the nights would stop
And events would protect you, so you pass unaffected.

13. Some facing each other, artillery batteries,
Some ascending, some descending,

14. Some visible, others concealed
Hidden in rocks or covered.

15. If only the seas had flowed two hundred folds,
And if all the waves were ships,

16. In order to meet a way out, we would have met for a while,
Before reaching the strait, harm touches.

17. After the archipelago and what follows it
And getting lost in the worlds, lost,

18. The light of dawn appeared, so you sailed in it
To the Bosphorus, and the berth drew near.

19. The cities accompany you, and the people,
A ship between sailing and anchoring,

20. And the islands and headlands embrace you,
And the rocks flow gently for you, yet they are rock.

21. You sail from the horizon to the strait,
Now you are on the open sea,

22. And another time by a mighty valley,
As if a waterfall stood by it, a river.

23. And you come to the horizon, folding it like a register,
To another like a mirage when it strays.

24. If we say the ports of call, it is said no,
For before reaching them, there is a plain and an evening.

25. Until the daylight settled at its prime,
And to the beholder, the lands became clear.

26. So we said, “Is that the sun in it or blossoms?”
It is ruby, coral, and pearls.

27. And we wished you would take us floating,
And where is eternity through you, where?

28. So our spirit would delight and our eye be content
With the best it saw in the voyage of the sea,

29. With a tablet combining beautiful images,
And a book singular in imagination,

30. And a mirror of scenes and spaces,
Through which nature passes as it passes.

31. A space exemplified as paradise in it,
And a sight in the seas without equal.

32. So alas, O daughters of poetry, alas!
What is your excuse for neglecting poetry?

33. For your sake I traveled by land and sea,
And you, for ages, you in every place

34. Were affectionate to nature except Egypt.
And you said in the presence of nature, where is Egypt?

35. Why didn't the melting lead shake you,
And this tablet and the wondrous pen,

36. With no barrier between them and me,
Nor over the signs is there any veil on me.

37. Directions or virgins, seas or sky or plants?
And are those islands or lamps?

38. And how is their rising while the time is noon?
The horizon framed them yellow, yet they are green,

39. Like flowers below them in the meadow, flowers.
The sea leaned towards them and coiled.

40. As if the sides of the basin betrayed them suddenly.
Through them mosques loom with minarets,

41. And forts connect, towering,
Tiered above unevenly,

42. The land with them sank and the land rose.
And how much land beyond, above land,

43. And meadows above meadows, above meadows,
And houses some above others,

44. Like lines in a book, above them lines,
Lines no drawing can encompass

45. And no knowledge can count their meanings,
Which if read together compose an ode,

46. And if read individually, compose prose.
They grow more fragrant as they draw near and purify,

47. And a thread connects them from the horizons.
They resemble what - so the palace is a ship,

48. At a distance from us, and the ship a palace.
And a letter N sails below them in the sea,

49. Dotted by the ship from the Bosphorus.
As if the paths in it are springs for us,

50. And the sailor does not settle.
There safety surrounded us in its shelter,

51. And wellbeing encircled us in its refuge.
So we cast the anchors and settled

52. In a building for the caliphate, most splendid.
O you who seek the most wondrous sight,

53. And loves it, conscious or listening!
You have seen all the beauties of the world,

54. For they are the Waw and the Bosphorus is Amrou.