1. O my heart, where are you? Where has my mind strayed?
With what words can I inscribe my notebooks?

2. When you left for Al-Hissân while at the peak
Of glory and blooming youth,

3. And abandoned my dreams and the pens of passion,
Going to worship the calf of the Samaritan,

4. And refused to stay with me as if we
Were two enemies battling without armies,

5. O my heart, where are you? And life is short
And union briefer than a fleeting mirage

6. What is it to me if a traitor denies affection?
What is it to me if loved ones wound my feelings?

7. What is it to me that I see you disappear? Where have
The passersby of love in this early morning gone?

8. Is it yearning for the Levant that makes you crave?
Are the tears in your eyes like heavy pouring rain?

9. Or towards Sana'a whose doves
You pine for, and its fragrant flowering arjel?

10. O heart, tell me: where are you? What do you see?
Do you love? Or do you crave to wound my feelings?

11. And it answers from behind the ribs as if
It weeps bound in shackles from a captive's chains,

12. And your heart says it can no longer
Remain patient here bound to other shackles

13. I am nothing to people but a poet
Nothing but poetry is the sum of my glories

14. I am in truth a poet and a warrior
And my passion is for the holy war, Algeria

15. Algeria and the struggle are my epics
That I recount when the tongue hides my secrets

16. Algeria and the struggle are lovers
And I fell in love with these two lovers, so beware!

17. I rode the trenches through the heat of hell
And became a follower of Emir Abdelkader

18. A homeland laden with self-sacrifice
With my cloak and belt as my insignia

19. And the Oran revolt is the perfect lesson
So by what law do I bow to the unjust?

20. And by what logic of minds will the
Tyrant yield except by valiant struggle?

21. Freeing the nation is a trust
To God borne by the severing sword

22. I no longer love while the nation is captive
And virginal honor is stained by the vile

23. I no longer know love or infatuation
The maidens have come to hate my jewels

24. I no longer know the right of manliness
Since the vultures swarmed to defile my sanctity

25. Forgive me if the eyes of my beloveds are cold
And I drew from the abundant sea of passion

26. The sincere poet has wings of glory
Among his people, none else is a poet

27. I have been patient though in patience there is humiliation
I still hope for the reward of the patient

28. And I hated the rebuke of the sedentary who deterred from glory
And grew weary of advice and warnings of chastity

29. I blasphemed against the accursed veto and its injustice
For I have become, with the struggle, Algerian