1. The ages trod upon the treasure,
And years swept over the mean.

2. The best of swords passed away,
As they closed their eyes serenely.

3. In a secluded place like the unseen
He was concealed from suspicions,

4. Until knowledge tore its seal
And gave freedom to the imprisoned.

5. Knowledge is innate, made lawful
To its people whatever they do.

6. It rent the veil over civilization
And the curtains over sciences.

7. It sneaked in like a lamp
Into the caves of ignorance.

8. A rebellion against minds,
Deaf in the soil, unhearing of fortresses.

9. Neither violent wind nor pouring rain
Can find their way to it.

10.
It betrayed the trust of its neighbor,

11. And the grave is, like worldly life, treacherous.
O son of piercing insights

12. And son of glittering proofs.
A noble lineage at daybreak

13. That attacked tribes and tents.

14. Have you seen how those drowned
In the flood of destiny return?

15. And how the tracks of generations
Revolve around the mill of time?

16. The love of immortality built in you
A character by which you are distinguished.

17. Those before you did not adopt it
Nor those after you.

18.
Until you competed in kindness

19. In all what you do.
You left it not in hardship

20. Or in easiness of affairs.
This rising, tell us when

21. Will be the last day?
Resurrection is the end of the perishable,

22. And you are immortal.
Is precedence in your qualities,

23. Will you precede the Day of Judgment?
You are masters of civilization,

24. And excellent builders.
The meticulous ones, and only

25. The meticulous are rewarded with eternity.

26. Did you descend into a tyrant's grave
Or the chamber of an eternal king?

27. Or in a place between that
Amazes the onlookers?

28. It is of the graves of the wretched
And the palaces of the prosperous.

29. No artifact in civilization remains
That it did not include, nor treasure.

30. A dead man whom life surrounds
His time is buried with him.

31. And treasures from times gone by,
Of life and religion.

32. It carried the pride of time
And its people, the arrogant.

33. So Paris was destroyed, thinking
It was made by the immortals.

34. Gold may disappear into the earth's belly
But its beauty is not lost to generations.

35. It made for you a crypt
And panels from it the arcs.

36. And artifacts unmade by the perished,
If the dead were aware, they would rise

37. To snatch the gold which
They were infatuated with.

38. Winding sheets of silk
Sewn with sheets of fine gold.

39. Wrapped like perfume wraps
By a gentle, refined embalmer.

40. As if they are ostrich eggs,
And you are a tender rose.

41.
In every corner is an image,

42. In every recess a statue.
You see figures so you imagine

43. Their movement, but stillness is essence of images.
And their profound silence passes

44. By perception as clear speech.
Their paint accompanied time,

45. Once fresh, then worn out after a while.
Smooth over the length of decay,

46. Alive over the length of death.
It deceived the eyes and always did

47. Until it challenged the touchers.

48. Your palace servants in the crypt
Offer and drive away.

49. The horn shouts and the arrow vibrates
And the bow is infatuated.

50. And your hunting dogs are panting
And the horses are crazed.

51. Sometimes the beasts are frightened in the plains,
Sometimes the gazelles leap.

52. And birds paddle in the terrain,
With melodies in their beaks.

53. As if fathers of animals
Are present in the cities.

54. And as if the state of the House of Shamis
Is to your left and right.

55. Greetings to the King of Kings
And loyalty of a faithful trustee.

56. I recognized this place
And preceded others in speaking of it.

57. I stood in your ruins
Weighing majesty and examining it.

58. And built in the twenties of
Its stones my solid poetry.

59.
My poems streamed

60. And the tough stone gave drink.
I sat a generation craving love

61. And stood another generation.
You were the illusion of glory

62. Raised to the aspiring youth.
And how often your majesty was borrowed

63. To eulogize Muhammad and the kings!
A crown that passed through imaginations

64. But did not settle on a brow.
Its beads are the straight sword

65. Bound by the long spear.
Tell me, when the soil

66. Seemed to constrain you, were you dismayed by the cave?
You found a kingdom not fortified

67. By weapon or impregnable castle.
The land overcome by vermin

68. And sea robbed of ships.

69. When you looked upon the monastery
You chanced upon a sad heart.

70. You found none save the digger
And the diver to aid you.

71. You came from curtains of glory
To a people indifferent.

72. The crown of civilization when it shone
Did not find them gathering around it.

73. By the Lord of Might, I swear
And will not exceed you in oaths,

74. Had it been a journey's delay or a clear conquest,
Or your sending from the heart's blood

75. Or the pulse of your temples,
And you emerged from the valley of Kings,

76. With you the cave of conquerors.
The horses around you neighing

77. Proudly in the open desert.
And on your steeds resembling

78. Palm trees and knights.
And the troops propelling before you

79. Kings in shackles.
You'd have seen a different generation

80. Submitting, not submitting to tyrants.
And you'd have seen the ruled who

81. Rebelled and returned the rulers.
The spirit of time and its system

82. And its course with others.
Truly time and its people

83. Are done with the cursed individual.
So if you saw elders

84. Or youths prostrate before you,
Meet the present, you'll find them

85. Lagging behind its caravan.
They are newly born in the late times