1. Damascus, I greet you from one alive and calling
How excellent, most excellent, is your valley among valleys

2. The revelers are not regretful as it descends upon them
It raises them up, a cup, to a friend

3. Truly, and for the leaves in its leaves, a rapture
As if in every branch, a thousand friends

4. O passerby going, stop by Barada
And spare me talk of the passerby who passed

5. How much have I drank in the shade of its terraces
From the water of its terraces that rouses you from habits

6. Next to a water-bearer, from the palm of a water-bearer
Who stood, bent with a wrist not called to

7. Brown, like the brown partition, clear
Her moist lips remedy the roughness of the arid

8. To me, when her passions meet my eyes
A beauty of glancing in Miqdad's eyes

9. Shall I risk my time in loving her
While my people are with my enemies and enviers?

10. And I have become proud in Saladin
Above the land, from civilization and from the nomad

11. The revolt of Shah, son of Ayyub, by which
Damascus became eminent over Egypt and Baghdad

12. From the son of Mamah, and Al-Tai in generosity
And the intensity of armor, Amr and Ibn Shaddad

13. Like the moon, if it departs, darkness falls after it
And if it appears, the friendly guide comes to you

14. And he is the one who never ceased in any abode
To travel behind the sublime, with water and supplies

15. From a people whose fires of war
Were ever kindled, flashing and thundering

16. Their assemblies pass as protected and serious
The jest of Ibn Hajjaj amid the solemnity of Ibn Abbad