1. Are you in anguish each day, disquieted,
Yearning for homelands, pining for four?

2. I spent my youth in youth, and turned toward it,
A youth spent, while filled with passion.

3. When the south wind blows gently,
You almost rush with yearning for Wadi Arak.

4. You almost melt with yearning when
A glint flashes on the peninsula for your eyes.

5. Since amulets were tied onto you,
You are enamored without your ground being shaken.

6. Do you think the sands of Al-Mahama, O youth,
Are gardens in which happiness is branching for you?

7. So the memory of it tempts you and the thought of it makes you pine,
And you long for its dwellings when the refuge feels cramped.

8. So enjoy what civilization has given you
Of wings that are wearied by enjoyment.

9. And do not be ungrateful for the blessings of culture
While the eye of the Bedouin sheds tears over some of it.

10. It alighted in a barren valley that yielded no crops
Other than famine, contrary to expectation.

11. Leave off the seduction of youth and beware,
For you are grazing in a plain of delusion!

12. I say to myself, when her talk ended
Abruptly, with persuasion that does not persuade:

13. Yes, her hands are idle of trinkets and adornment,
But they are set with noble deeds.

14. And though the fertility of her melodies is little,
For one who found every pasture in the West most fertile,

15. How excellent a house of poetry that has
A cure for my habitual treachery is coveted!

16. And how excellent a palace built in an orchard
Despite my cubbyhole in it for the cure fenced off.

17. The specter of the wasteland deceives a thirsty one
With our mirage of a river from London enriched.

18. And an owl that cheers the night in your gloom
With the weeping of homesick palm-doves distressed.

19. I prefer for my hearing the trills
Of an instrument making music for other than my country, O brother Arab!

20. And every country where people pronounce the letter ‘d’
Is my country, even if it gloated over me.