1. The abodes of zeal where there are spears and swords
Your eyes' abundant tears greet me

2. Misfortunes have suddenly struck you
While your people were secure and your might was dormant

3. While nights in you were festive
Suddenly you and the rivers in you became bereaved

4. May Allah be with you, may lamentations not cease for you
Is there anything left in this valley except doves?

5. Your valley has long been saturated with blood
When clouds grasped the rain, they withheld it from it

6. We dreamed of something but awoke to its contrary
What is truly attained by the dreamer of false dreams?

7. When desires were fulfilled, the desirous became ascetic
And the passionate became short of breath

8. I erected a structure in the wilderness without a foundation
or pillars to support it

9. So it is no wonder that the leaning is leaning
And whoever thought it stable, he is the demolisher

10. Can ruined dwellings be restored when their traces and features are erased?
May God keep the people who burdened you with calamities

11. And went away with spoils hung from their necks
They and your enemy, justice, in order to wrong you

12. An unjust father, but injustices have made you wise
No good is in a king when he wrongs his people

13. No good is in a king when he wrongs the ruler
How can those who fear calamities avoid them

14. When resolves have receded into the chests?
Four years have passed and no respite was given to anyone

15. Evils have spread across the lands like vultures
With snouts, hyenas blew their lethal breath

16. No wonder some years are arid
Despair is recompensed with tomorrow's hope

17. And a frightening evening with a deluded morning
When they permitted the sanctity of opinion to passions

18. The hopes of the lost became emboldened to sin
Then storms blew from every side

19. Each defending it other than it and competing
So favoritism cannot be condoned in it

20. Just as the war spoils cannot be divided in it
By night he is obedient yet fearful

21. By day he is commanding yet apprehensive
There is no glory in counseling misguidance

22. Nor glory in blaming foolishness
How can glory settle under the shade of a state

23. When its praiser lives in it discontented?
They gathered to gain victory but hopes in you are lost

24. Why didn’t they gather when hopes in you arrived?
The attackers supported each other

25. Either relax, O attacker, or make the attacker relax
Never have I seen troubles like your troubles arise

26. Defended by a king like your king who is forbearing
Never have I seen glory like your glory radiant

27. Shaded by fortune like your fortune which is gloomy
Fates look at you frowning

28. Often they smiled at you when smiling
The cities eulogize you out of mercy

29. Though the capitals envied your joy
O you who saw those past conquests

30. Now drink the sorrow which defeats succeeded
If you are certain in thanking your state

31. You are not blameworthy in thanking your past
We will cry over an era whose disgrace is renewed

32. And grieve over an era whose glory is past
In tears and sorrow there is relief for anguish

33. When it is weighed down by calamities that forbear
You are a battlefield whose firmament is death

34. So we fall while its land is skulls
Two bare adversaries vie in it

35. One defending a tottering kingdom, the other attacking
The banners lagged behind their bases

36. And their esteemed advocates fled from litigation
The planets were alarmed though they are evidence

37. Their orbits are encroached upon by other orbits
Thunder responds to their wailing around them

38. As flashes in the horizons growl
Cannons from them pile up

39. Rifles from them accumulate
And a death-bound spear is cast

40. And a terrified horse panics and flees
One face laughs at all faces

41. While another face hopes in some faces
As if chaos has become the souls' obsession

42. So whoever kills, dies obsessed
They have no drink but blood

43. And no food but flies and germs
When they sensed weakness, everyone is a warrior

44. When they sensed might, everyone makes peace
No good is in peace atop which havoc winds blow

45. And waves of death crash below it
Hands gesture with peace deceitfully

46. Then reach with others for the swords in the chests
How many a rival in these souls

47. Yet not one compromise remains in these souls
No virtues remain in the world

48. No qualities remain in the world
Cliques collapsed from the first blow

49. Since there were no collisions in the cliques
A resolute army attacked them

50. And a prolonged predicament overwhelmed them
Abdullah was remiss in defending them

51. Abdullah did not find an army to resist
Though there was a basket of planets among them

52. They were destroyed and the good life returned to fleeing
The fugitives from havoc appeared seeking help

53. Zeyneb in its outskirts and Fatimas
Unveiled women in that darkness lost their honor

54. Some of them terrified and some defended
They have no defender against the source of shame

55. No protector against the origin of despair
Was there no merciful one amongst the attacking people?

56. It is said there is a merciful one amongst the attacking people
Derna, may your pillars remain standing

57. For the pillars of war stand beneath you
You have lived through the centuries of time, its turns unstable

58. Can time be humiliated when time is defiant?
Know that this is the season of glory returning

59. It is no wonder that lasting glory has seasons
Your valiant sons remain honored

60. And the noses of your enemies before you are dust
You took a stand between death and disgrace

61. Your troubles placed you in a position you can endure
If you wish for a death whose cup is easy

62. And if you tire of disgrace, who would tire like you?
When we consider your affliction frightening

63. That is an affliction made frightening by the frightening
If you are safe, you forget the misery of destruction

64. And if you are destroyed, living is not pleasantly peaceful
Cold shocking events from which claws do not refrain

65. Just as claws do not refrain from you
So astonishing is that misery with its similarities

66. And astonishing is that misery for he who bears it
O my country, I do not see except what makes me dejected

67. Why, after people, does no blamer remain?
Crowns followed you so the highness was yours

68. Yet when they were completed, turbans demolished them
If an overcomer was once among your ancestors

69. There was no decisive one among your ancestors
Opinion has clearly withered, completely dry

70. For might died when its harmonizer died
The vile people's corruption prevailed and did not cease

71. To nurture evil secretly until declaring it openly
Beware the transgressors' tyranny in you

72. Alas, after this you will not find healers
They quickly turned away when you slipped

73. And quickly returned when coins clinked
They came to govern people with politics

74. Futilely, those beasts had not done so before
How many a scholar they called ignorant

75. And how many an ignorant one they called a scholar
They stood without repenting from falsehood

76. They remained without regretting betrayal
Grievous for us is that this kingdom is lost

77. And that he who erased the kingdom remains
Every people awoke and took back their rights

78. If only your slumbering people would awake
They are a people who spent their lives serving

79. And had no servants among those who ruled them
How often have they moved from one misery to another

80. When one tyrant departs, another tyrant arrives
You have ruled the sword between us once again

81. So the unjust one ruled, and the rule of the sword is harsh
Do not hope to subdue us with this

82. No bare one in the wilderness has a subduer