1. O Egypt, your plight is the plight of the East entire,
Despite the divergence of its people and their sorrows abound,

2. In its cities the yearning gazelles were left to graze,
And in its valleys the fruits of the oleander bloom,

3. Lightning flashed when news of him took flight,
And in solemnity his death did customs don,

4. Lebanon's firm roots were bent in grief,
And the willow and tamarisk of Al-Ghouta were sere,

5. In the darkness eyes did flow with darkness,
And in Hejaz and Najd agony took hold,

6. What is the state of a people whose sun was eclipsed?
The new moon rises but cannot avail them,

7. Mother of cities walks as a barren woman
Bearing the bier with the gait of one whom sterility has struck,

8. She turned from the Holy Place, her hands did not complete their task,
So she came with the radiance of the eye to take charge,

9. Her dwellings are desolate like the stony tracts of Suhm,
And in the expanses the throngs of mankind cram,

10. And in the lands with as many dirges as there are lands
A wailing arose the like of which nations never saw,

11. And behind each curtain they mime his death
Of parties more than number can count,

12. The Arabs never witnessed in their calamities
A day like this one witnessed, nor the non-Arabs,