1. I see you reproaching the nightingale
As if you were sanctifying the sacred valley

2. Caressing between bewilderment and joy
Like Adam when he inhabited Paradise

3. May God water our sacred valley, it is
Impregnable, and has become protected forever

4. God only wanted His will fulfilled
With its superiority, love and consecration

5. First he called Saint Antony, the chosen
Imam of guidance, asceticism and teaching

6. As if I see him on Mount Sinai witnessing
A revealed God in the flaming bush

7. I fell down unconscious from the revelation
And that mount collapsed to the ground overturned

8. I sensed the flashes of the burning fire
Highs and angels within it like monasteries

9. When I approached to apologize for its light
It called me “You have sensed my fire, O Moses”

10. “Come forward, remove your shoes, set them aside
For you are sanctifying the sacred mount”

11. “Be not troubled by its lightning and thunder
Since you were a servant, familiar and accustomed”

12. “Come whisper to God in the garb of a monk
May God shepherd a devoted Syrian servant”

13. When we whispered, I fell submitting
To Him, and He gave me the Law as a constitution

14. The constitution of asceticism whose stability
We see in its covenant, established as a foundation

15. We descended to the sacred valley, having
Renounced the world, even if it were a lexicon

16. Its monks stood tall above the intellectual
World to discard anything sensory

17. They built a monastery containing rituals
Resembling a shaded and familiar Paradise

18. They mortify bodies and enliven souls
So one may see the dead alive and ensouled

19. They will not be startled in their journey by Satan
When they ring the bell in the dark night

20. Their armor is the black hoods on their heads
Black cassocks, not an impurity

21. Their clothes black, their deeds white
Their enviers yellow, they have purified their heads

22. When the dawn sounds their prayer call
It removes despair and gloom from the sinner

23. When they recite the Bible on the pulpits
My heart inclines to preserve the constitution

24. So my steely heart became a malleable body
And their voice fire or magnetism

25. They hunted for perfection as if they were
A falcon chasing a peacock in their zeal

26. You see justice, secretive asceticism, bareness, saintliness and righteousness in them
They have taken wisdom from every art

27. To store away from them Satan
They have softened the dense part as if they are

28. Angels containing this part tangible
God refused them to be named by mother or father

29. Rather they were named a soul rooted in the intellect
You have favor, O Mount Lebanon, so shine

30. When graced by your Master with pride and foundation
And O sacred valley, tell me

31. How many monks your preserves have sheltered and priests
When my eyes roam your environs desirous

32. Of a foothill containing your guarded monastery
I am jealous over it like the jealousy of Elijah thus Moses

33. So fear not, O happy monastery, through its people
For Elisha the stoic will please you as a companion

34. When you are associated with him, he will protect you so you are never inauspicious
For that saint and you are sanctified

35. Since you are in the sacred valley, sanctifying
O moon that shone from the peak of guidance

36. In Lebanon, increasing your foundation
Your foundation is built on the rock of piety

37. As Alyshdad built the fortress O Bosra
Through you, truth was known, and truth states

38. That the God of creation personally civilized
Jesus, who came one day a savior

39. So the Protector honored a mighty and most holy