1. You grew old as your day was meant for eulogy
The immortal ones whose covenant I made alive

2. Or are they given sustenance? Yes, and that's their sustenance
The making of immortality, prestige and giving

3. They said: life, so I said: a debt to be paid
And death was said, so I said: it was loyalty

4. O leader of the martyred army send him
Yearning visited his martyred soldiers

5. You made your day too big to be a eulogy
Did you make it an appointment and meeting?

6. Did the fluttering of eternity provoke you
To have a chat with the sincere and the insincere?

7. Or did you want to gather the dispersed nation?
Or did you want to provoke the poets as was your habit?

8. O you the soaring eagle avoiding
The raging storms as it tilts

9. Swooping hastily so his prey escapes
And hunting it when slowing down was right

10. I praise you, and praise is not worship
How many worshippers have marred praise!

11. The ransom of men is two insults: a belittler
And a slanderer avoid the augmenter and slanderer

12. Glory does not make men infallible
Rather, the great one makes glory and mistakes

13. And when souls became arrogant, they did not remember
Insulting them or flattering them

14. The vast, roaring sea does not care about tributaries
Poured into it or the foam blown away as rubbish

15. An absent forest where no lion settles
His occasional mistakes are not counted, but

16. His pouncing is counted, and it suffices him
What was missed in his counts

17. You were the backbone of a nation. Its breeze
And roaring, the dawn and the twilight

18. Cast upon you its thickets, meadows
And entrusted you with the sand and the desert

19. You were the son of your land from the essence of its soil
Given fruits, and did not become barren

20. Who takes both destinies: ease and adversity
And reproaches despite your disposition to harm

21. They said: an aloof father so the nation became
Thousands, while you alone in it were the b

22. It stumbled blindly through eras, bent
Defeated, so you stirred it tempestuously

23. You lit the path for the coming generation though
The tyrants’ cunning made it go astray

24. And you recognized the good tidings of its awareness
When it used to recognize only temptation before

25. You shone bright in the darkest of tribulations
With your white hand passing over its vanguard

26. You rebelled against classes where one milks
The other, as shepherds milk ewes

27. You wished that neither the rich nor the poor would recognize
Through it the sweetness of life or prosperity

28. And you strove to fulfil your destiny among them
To build a society overflowing with bliss

29. Alas for you, you did not alleviate the misery of the poor
Nor did you ask the rich for adequacy

30. Around you were thousands trying
To destroy while you alone sought building

31. May your chest remains healthy, how intense
Are its ribs in adversity, and how kind in comfort!

32. Politics contradicts itself in its changing states
Making resolves and opinions conform

33. Sometimes harsh, sometimes restrained
Sometimes gentle, sometimes clever and sometimes cunning

34. And I saw in “Aswan” the power of a magician
Seeking to resurrect the dead

35. You brought him back to life, and they doubted you
So you slapped the sceptics with him, awakened

36. You spoiled the evil of a gambler and won him
And took away his wicked cards

37. You deflected the cunning of cunning people back into their throats
And finished them, and asked for their being cut off

38. You made the miracle of the “channel” and terrified them
And quenched their hellfire thirst with water

39. You squeezed the energies of the masses, nurtured them
And found them very fertile

40. You provoked the chords of souls, so they willingly signed
Their brown tunes over to you

41. They yielded to you their hearts and veins
Generous! Giving whatever dew has given

42. When you speak you captivate the mind of the listener
And his devotion, hearing and listening

43. And when you are silent your silence spreads awe
Making them seem like a silent battalion

44. I praise you. Leaders shape the masses
As they create leaders

45. The visions of “June” and it suffices you that it
Revives for us with its visions “Ashura”

46. You rose high so the lofty mountains rose high
Dragged by the resolve and determination that you ignited

47. And emulated you so they walked guided
By your steps, had you been their fine guide

48. And you stumbled, so they stumbled, and you were their banner
Falling, and they did not accept any banner but you

49. A trust that perplexes warning, and a pride
That the intoxicated got lost in

50. They said: blind emotions! And rarely does
A leader arouse blind emotions!

51. They were attendants walking toward
Death, not unknowingly or under coercion

52. The path was harsh for the weak, while the resolves
Of men chose hardship and fatigue

53. How could you be blamed for a long dark night
That makes the next dawn even darker?

54. Turning away on it are the escapees
And under its wing gather “the agents”

55. Everyone...and neither the innocent masses
Are to blame, innocent and pure from rape

56. What was the fault of both your number as pebbles
We were insulted by conquering them?

57. O Egypt! We the dreamers as they claim?
Far from it! That tendency seems deluded

58. We are the lungs amid the folds of a nation
That went about with us gasping for air

59. We brought no innovations but we
Were the echoes of what she dreamed

60. We are no angels, but it suffices us
To resist temptation

61. We wrap ourselves with what she has given us of revelation Above all that life offers as consolation
I beg your pardon, we are blameless

62. Created to give everything its due right
Created to feel what a creeping ant feels

63. In its crawl, a dove and a soft feather
To live the tragedy of all creatures

64. And to discern its remedy and disease
Have mercy on those who burdened themselves

65. To overlook what they do see!
The zeal of men roared and indignation roared

66. That even lions are weaker than goats!
What courage do these “lions” have that all

67. Cannot match a crawling serpent!
Five million nations and Arabs

68. Give three loafers a chance
Playing while the “second of the two Qiblas” is violated

69. And celebrating “the Ascension and the Night Journey”
And adorning the sitting rooms every evening

70. To establish the selling of “Zaraat and Tishreen” calls
And hoarding the ill-gotten gold like its people

71. Who find life miserable and rich
And chasing the noble thought as if

72. Chasing an epidemic and contagion from it!
And the “Constitution” shares the awareness of the militant

73. With the criminals in penalty and punishment!
And theorizes tyranny to turn

74. The Hanif religion into inability to give
From above the gallows’ necks dangle

75. The best heads in pride and loyalty
The dungeons are almost upset in grief

76. Crying to have mercy upon the prisoners!
And again they wonder how their place

77. Used to be where life originates and passes
Why wonder? We do not blame destiny

78. Or what we are in is destined
We went deducting compromise from the wing

79. In secret and shortening the wing of deceit
Not pleased with the low ground we have

80. By force, and the wing does not rise to heaven I asked myself though I do not want its answer:
Do I hate who surrenders and cries?

81. Did you see “Salah al-Din” getting crazy
When the zeal and indignation intensified?

82. Or did “Quds” return to the same humiliation?
Or did the religion of Muslims become hypocrisy?

83. Son of “Qenana” and son of every great woman
Who is cunning in affliction, be cunning

84. Make us prouder that you are displeased when told
What news you used to hate hearing:

85. “The saviours” were slaughtered and you a victim
Died for them, though sacrifice does not replace sacrifice

86. “The saviours” were slaughtered, and I wish thousands of slaughterers Would replace a finger of them that still moves
The honour of “Jordan” was dyed with the blood

87. Of the best lineage it has blood
Until the sun shines on its banks

88. Pelting it with stones evening and morning
They left the leftovers of the invaders on its “Western” side

89. So they fell on its “Eastern” side torn into pieces
Those bones, their dust will whirl up

90. To blind kings and bury princes
And if you are astonished, their gathering

91. Around it are the dissenters and the dissenters
They resorted to the “settlements” so they were named

92. Moderates, and its people were named moderates!
O Egypt the dream of all Easts

93. Since dreams and fantasies suffered
O daughter of “your Nile” from the sweetness of its chime

94. The tunes of your chime are utter softness and clarity
It embraced life as an infant, so they walked together

95. And walked together competing as equals
Awake to awaken what shakes her bed

96. Did not rest in its banks even a blink
And the foster daughter of the “two pyramids” grew old as they

97. Raised you in your prime and youth
You give all your magic in prosperity

98. And you are patient with adversity
You supply time with seven plentiful years

99. Enough for it seven arid years
The centuries passed leaving their spells

100. Pelting you with the rising and setting
The dawn painting a blooming cheek

101. The night kohl-lining languid eyes
The sun scorching a tan Arab

102. The stars dancing a swaying stature
You stepped fresh into the “civilization” farm

103. Starting it with a green apple
And you picked flowers on its flanks

104. Turning them into singing gardens
Sheltering them, poetry and poets

105. And science, scientists and philosophers
blaze despite the overwhelming darkness and dispel

106. it, increasing joy and comfort
And persevere! You have persevered the like of it

107. And more then made them into specks of dust
blaze! Three continents spanning

108. Eras shine with your bright torch
O Egypt your three letters were to me

109. Were it not for hyperbole, fervour and swoon
Twenty years I never visited you and an hour

110. Of them was wish and hope from me
Why? I do not know save that twenty poems

111. Did not help me meet you
I forgot in them Egypt’s people and provoked it Hoping it climbs the commotion

112. And condemned the “Pharaoh” who goes astray arrogantly
Forbidding and ordering without care

113. I was jealous of your visitors, finding me
Sponging, envying her sister sponging

114. They crawl down every hill, while I was not
In craving you a worthless crawl

115. The burden of heavy shadows that I could not endure
Did you carry, may I be sacrificed for you, the weighty?

116. I indulged in you a fatherhood that to me
Certain knowledge, as children act spoiled

117. O Egypt I have a homeland that makes me
Appreciate its giving and loves giving in me

118. It is crowded with paths around me until I
Almost lose in the crowds my cloak

119. We have walked the path of struggle since it cleared
The pride of struggle in its atmosphere and lit up

120. Resounding together endlessly, I provoke it
With preference, and it provokes me with gesture

121. Death has one family, and martyrdom has its people
Do you see me being slaughtered to slaughter martyrs?!

122. And in Egypt I have a homeland that made me soar
To where I would not have soared in other horizons

123. I find there all the worlds gathered in its foothills
Glory to the Creator of its parts being parts

124. O lotus tree at the farthest limit that only recognized
The green shadows and longings

125. Nasser took from your shadows and so he often
Gave the masses his own shadows and bestowed them

126. And upon you, O pride of struggle, greetings
As pure and sincere as your soul

127. If death befalls you in the battle’s expanses then after
You ignited its sands and wilderness

128. And you carried from honesty its heaviest weight
Without dropping it out of boredom or fatigue

129. Sleep safely! Your free soul will extend
Amidst the struggle to your loyal comrades