1. Solace for this death, O you who ransomed Egypt
And whose life is a memory, and whose death is a memory

2. Friend of my youth, what did we gain from youth
Except for the sorrows that overwhelmed us, it seems

3. None remains among us an impartial judge except your death
Your glory has come to you, not to be sold or bought

4. You fell like a martyred soldier, your death
Is life for the free thought that immortalizes ideas

5. And you died nobly defending the nation
That entrusted you in its greatest tribulations

6. When the soldier falls in the fury of battle
What poem henceforth could soar with it?

7. As if your death tasted the most eloquent argument
And refuted thoroughly the accuser of Egypt

8. Had you lit a fire with your eloquence
That kindled a heap of fuel for the captives

9. O source of the free, your life
Was an undeviating address of truth that does not mislead

10. You never knew the meaning of cowardice or passion
And never accepted any excuse for following them

11. You never bowed in prayer to a tyrant
And you were to me the defiant vinegar and healing honey

12. The humbled lean on me, and you increased
My loyalty, though others damned me with blasphemy

13. You honored me until it was as if you were my follower
And not I who for ages sought your talents

14. The nature of a free soul does not vacillate
Thus is the noble free spirit who honors the free

15. However we differed, you raised my worth
To your lofty worth, and so created worth for me

16. And never once did I think of bats
Or the predatory eagle or the raptor

17. Rather, my thoughts were occupied only with truth
And you did not fear anything but truth in adversity

18. And you were busy with humankind, individual and nation
O, your tireless efforts cannot be enumerated

19. And you were busy with free, unfettered thought
All of which reality had made ugly and denied

20. It was as if the ruin of the world depended
On the humiliation that afflicted the proud mind

21. My eyes are forbidden to shed tears, for they
Are a cure, and my sorrow may die, not heal

22. My poetry is forbidden to eulogize you, able
To give birth to patience through grand eulogies

23. My prose is forbidden, though these
Pages of yours are your other verse

24. You were the first to diagnose your illness
It was as if I opened your grave for no one

25. Many long years passed while I despaired
Racing against time every year

26. Until the year came that seemed to bring victory
But the judgment of death accompanied the victory