1. I bid farewell to the fissures of my youth before its departure,
And I picked its berries when they were ripe for the picking.

2. I shook off the remnants of a fleeting youth,
Whose shedding brought tears, like the withering of plants.

3. I see that youth is swift in passing, though
I hastened its pace in my haste.

4. The youth is blessed who faces his fate
With equanimity, through good and ill.

5. And I imagine I might have lived in vain dreams
Had I not strove to interpret events.

6. But I was consumed with comparing
Forever the alternatives and their likenesses.

7. I busied myself, yet the tragedy is that
I reap the emptiness of life from my busyness!

8. Despair has gone beyond bounds, so that
I now fear evil before it comes.

9. And I have grown so wary that I take no delight
In joy, fearing instability and reversal.

10. Oh friends of my youth who grew up
Between the clear dawns and the darkness of youth.

11. Though youthful passion has waned
And I have turned from the star of passion and its setting.

12. The memory of you stirs me
And fills me with a yearning for the gatherings and tales of youth.

13. My loved ones, enjoy life along the Euphrates,
With its waters and palms.

14. And remember the ardour of one longing,
Exhausted by separation, its victim.

15. Scorching, with desires buried, find with you
The cooling of his torment and revival of his desires.

16. I greet Damascus, the greeting of one amazed
By its vast patios and cool shade.

17. A land where beauty equals the night,
Its daylight like its twilight.

18. Sheltered from the winds, as if the morning breeze
Had sworn to blow there only its gentle breezes.

19. The wide open spaces threaten to make desolate
Even settled areas by their pristine nature.

20. It suffices that this land revives the heart of one
Who seeks refuge there from the toil of exile.

21. I marvel at the splendor of its rocks and mountains,
Its slopes and plains.

22. The water flowing over its pebbles,
The sun rising between its tells.

23. The lower banks and the spacious sands,
The upper banks and its cool resting places.

24. They are separated by gentle islands, projecting
Like rivals vying in their prime.

25. The boats ply the waters, lined up
As if competing to reach their destinations.

26. As the curve approaches its outlet, it seems
To seek to reach it before the waters arrive.

27. If you look, you can see a boat there
Lit up by its lamp.

28. Or the sound of oars shows by its echo
Against the pebbles its song of lament.

29. Stillness descended over the whole world,
And the valley drew round itself a cloak of stillness.

30. A dove cooed among the rocks,
Hearing the warbling of a lover's lament.

31. The song propagated a lament among the banks
And the rustling of branches awakened his companion.

32. I have seen the panorama of the Tigris in a scene
That poetry fails to describe.

33. Its sunset glow diffused over the water
Gold on its shoals and meadows.

34. Until when night fell, there appeared for it
An afterglow surrounding the moon in its rising.

35. The two glows converged, one ascending
And one descending.

36. Then a luminous silver light played
Over the two expanses: its waters and its dunes.

37. Thus the shores, the plains, the pastures,
The river, the valley and all its surroundings

38. Were silvery, dancing with beams, adorned
With a wondrous, mysterious charm.

39. The sky was perfectly clear, so that if a breath
Crossed it, it would appear in its polished transparency.

40. It is for the likes of this life that a young man
Yearns and cares for its hopes.

41. And if I grieve for ruin, it is because
It was lush land, which grieves you in its transformation.

42. It seemed splendid mansions, now desolate,
Humbled, with all pride lost.

43. Like an army routed, whose regiments have fled,
Leaving remnants for the enemy's plunder.

44. The Lover's retreat is destroyed,
Like a despairing lover bereft of his beloved.

45. The Ja'fari still stands, though time
Has not diminished its magnificence.

46. Its evident desolation seems to betray
Anguish over its vanished luxury above its tells.

47. As if it found no substitute for Ja'far
To bring it joy, nor a peer for his generation.

48. Its halls once resounded with his poetry
And the melodious chanting of al-Walid.

49. The excellent poets of past times
Adorned the Golden Age and were its pride.

50. They vaunted a poet as if
The meaning of wisdom lay only in his attainment!

51. Sweet speech was their reward, and they wove
A crown of sovereignty from its strands.

52. When they sought silence, they recalled
The King's abundant grace in his gifts.

53. One who shields his soul, not degrading it
With meanness, giving wealth without conceit.

54. And when they sang, it was as if a bird trilled,
The effects of luxury apparent in its warbling.

55. I was moved by a tender sadness,
Bewildered in the eye, at its entrance.

56. I asked fate about its design?
its surface, breadth and length?

57. It answered me: this ruin is its breast
And the empty ruin the trail of its tail.

58. Ask the winds blowing
They know best all its branches and roots.

59. And learn that when time passes
The meteors of heaven are the tread of its steeds.

60. The Abbasids stretched out a conquering hand
So time walked for them with fists of conquest.

61. And when they grew tyrannous, their truthful kingdom was ravaged,
With the false claim of a deceitful kingdom.

62. Thus is politics in its claims,
Awarding the unworthy what is due to the worthy.

63. Samarra, I have immortalized you, though I have not conveyed
But a little of your abundant virtues.

64. O joy of the heart which left nothing
Of sadness and sorrow their trace and their lodging.

65. You revived one whose heart's fire raged
And relieved him of the torment of his fevered heart.

66. You gave him hope and banished the anxieties
That troubled him, actualizing his imaginings.

67. You made his hopes truthful, worthy of one like him,
So you were, and increased his hopes.

68. This fresh beauty will be returned to you
Redoubled by my poetry and its beauties.

69. But I have transgressed, for my heart turns over ideas
Beyond poetry's ability to represent.

70. And exquisite meanings in you confound
Their expression, refined as it is.

71. Perhaps what is conveyed of speech will be transformed
In a coming world to its meanings.

72. There metaphor will expand, freeing one
From summary meaning to detail.