1. Leave off listening to memories of the monastery of Simeon,
For the monastery of Mouran has not been made bitter by fate.

2. In it there is a deacon like suns when
They bring you amid Gospels and crosses.

3. And every priest is like a priest; if he speaks of
Jesus son of Mary or Moses son of Amram,

4. And among the palm trees there is to me from the children of Jafnah
A gazelle who recites to me the poems of Hassân.

5. By God, the night we passed with him, he being the third of us,
Of Muslim, Jew, and Christian,

6. And we left from the three of us—white, crackling,
Yellow, crumbling, or red, crumbling—

7. And he said, “Come! For the dawn has shone, and the
predawn has sweetened, upon a soul and a basil,"

8. Between stream and meadow is an orchard whose
rivers flowed in the shade of myrtle and acacia,

9. Its flowers sprinkled about, and the meadow strewn
As if it were molded from pearl and coral,

10. And the birds chant in its boughs at dawn a magic spell:
“This is life, if only it were not fleeting!”