1. Your elegy is so hard for my tongue
And your calamity so heavy upon my eyelids.

2. How can a sad heart utter eloquence
When the two lips are stiffened by grief?

3. Your absence, after victory turned
And the steeds of triumph plunged into war,

4. Has been hard indeed! You were yesterday a lamp
To the East, with darkness thick and smoke spread wide.

5. The greedy now swarm over your wealth
As flies gather on bowls of milk.

6. Frontiers frown at their encroachments
And borders and deserts bristle in anger.

7. But what avails telling me of your destiny
When mine and yours are so close?

8. I cried for you as if I cried
For my own torment and agony.

9. And I felt that a calamity had occurred,
I fathomed its depths until it engulfed me.

10. I clapped my hands in grief - but how far
Are two hands' clapping from achieving any end?

11. I departed, but what wounds in my heart
That I deceived, biting my fingers in pain!

12. And a specter of remembrance embraced me,
Like one despairing, abased and in darkness,

13. Its sides streaming with tears of longing
For the sweet glimpses and days of bliss,

14. For those radiant nights when 'Lebanon' bloomed
With lamps, and the scent of gardens was wafted from far,

15. When the wine was as if it drew over it
The musk perfume of the meadows of Paradise.

16. A specter I departed from in despair and greed,
To solace my soul from seeing reality.

17. It aroused in me feelings of fury, turmoil,
Pity and tenderness. It undid the knots of memories

18. That shake the soul unleashing its reins.
I gathered their fragrances - and from them I smelt

19. The perfume of the wine of anger purified, and the affection of the love of man.
We are both unable to speak of it,

20. While the ghosts of death cast their spears.
I cursed language - how harsh and obstinate!

21. How disobedient in conveying meanings!
You ask me about you, to translate you,

22. While I take refuge from it in being unable to translate you.
O strength of struggle, when the valiant of heart

23. Is squeezed by the timid of soul!
O strength of rhetoric, when the barren of mind

24. Is fed by the fertile of speech!
O strength of loyalty, when So-and-so betrays

25. So-and-so in times of hardship!
You are protected from evil, if protection

26. Avails. But where are those capable of protecting?
We and life are on the verge of decay.

27. Every gathering comes to an end.
We thought to spend the evening and morn with you,

28. While you are alone, absent and without place!
I pity those who out of love frequent your tomb

29. And gain through your favor.
Your comrades on the day desires bloomed,

30. And your brothers-in-arms on the day of clashing swords!
I loved you with a name, while anxiety walked

31. On the lines of your face with pride.
You overcome it and defeat it through your defiance,

32. As if you and anxiety had a wager!
A mouth is silenced - but how do silent lips

33. Conceal the secret were it not for the two eyes?
On their edges there was always a smile and charm,

34. And their gaze upon you was always tender.
The company would return from you to a meadow

35. With a gentle breeze waving through its branches.
It overflows with pleasant talk and melts with kindness -

36. While only you know the torment that you suffered!
How precious is manliness on lips

37. That cloak pain and conceal it!
Eloquent with meaning culled with care -

38. Through it words stand towering.
In them a lively mind would provoke you

39. And words flash like the lightning of a nimble hand.
A narrator presents you with perils - and for you

40. Difficulties from both far and near are plucked.

41. You have set down its lines and left it -
So it longs for you with persistent sadness.

42. O father of 'Al-Khattab', upon you descended a night
Barren, with no morrow following it!

43. And eyes were shut to hopes
Teased by wishes.

44. A safe rule that gives justice to the people -
Where each individual rests in confidence.

45. So depart not, even if decay has taken its course!
What remains of your achievements will not perish.

46. The pledge of eternity is a tomb over which
Gather the fruits of thought ripening continuously.

47. 'Barada' wept for you with copious tears
And the Nile overflowed with a flood of eloquence.

48. And I came to avert my eyes in shyness -
For this is what the Two Rivers bring forth!

49. When grief can be excused in bereavement
Then poetry surely may be excused for raging.