1. Loyalty like the scent of two valleys, generous
And love like old Damascene bliss

2. And poetry like horizons dressed in sky
Suns to its tunes and stars

3. (Shafeeq) picks star after star
And strings them into an organized necklace

4. Meanings with the colors of beauty are rich
As the smells of perfume wafted by the breeze

5. And passion he forms like dreams of youth
Elegant, learned in the secrets of rhetoric

6. It quenched my thirst for poetry until I swooned
Tears singing, sorrow and gloom

7. So in every verse a sip or a draft
And a Damascene bouquet and boon

8. Travels take me east and west
But my heart resides in Damascus

9. And I hear its echo without seeing
As if on Mount Al-Jalal (Moses)

10. What my faith gained from hearing is that
I pray for it in my exile and fast

11. And no hardship or misery in my fate
Could harm the pearl while an orphan

12. Glory has burdens but they're wished for
And noble treasures have worries

13. And faulted me, he whose loyalty I hoped for
While the sun among stars has opponents

14. The great meets hatred in every nation
So no great avoided the hatred of tyrants

15. And the envious is pierced by the light of genius
And the villain ashamed by the glory of genius

16. And selves suffer like hearts
That harbour embers of hatred and coal

17. And the ear of the envious never knew bounty
Has an eye rested well when malign?

18. And claims that hatred inspires bounty
Never! Barren is the bounty of men

19. And no nation was built except on love
And no glory except through merciful leader

20. No paradise above the bounty of affection
No hell above the hatred of selves

21. It is love that honours even nothingness with wealth
And sorrows for the sadness of the rich destitute

22. And lightens the burden of sin from the sinner
Mercifully forgiving sins, leading

23. My Lord, my heart never knew love
Nor fragrance or glow from Your essence

24. I believed to never intend incense
That You disapprove or desire

25. Your light cleared the world's beauty for my eye
That even in griefs no blemish remains

26. I surrendered my affair not out of despair
But sincere passion, pure inheritance, I desire

27. So I escaped to my heart fearing reason
As the sick flee their enemy in health

28. Reason, you are made divine, its restraint
Nearly revived the dead, though frail

29. The world confined it, so in every mind
Worries of its blasphemy and gloom

30. And you created this reason, harvesting its bounty
Arts like the scents of passion and knowledge

31. Civilizations bloom on it, luminous
Good like the sky's pouring, all-encompassing

32. And the poet sings blissfully in Eden for Your maidens
And the sage flirts with the heavens' secrets

33. So why has this reason gone insane
Repelling the angel of purity while sinning?

34. And the blasphemer shook land and sea
Ungrateful for Your blessings, apprehensive

35. In his cup at dawn a draft
And in his cup at dusk poison

36. He gives pleasure what it craves so he's charitable
And usurps what he gave so he's indebted

37. He challenged You until he almost claimed
To be partner to the Lord of the heavens, dividing

38. And tried conquering the planets so You threw him
From the invincible summit while an outcast

39. And restrained reason's rein so perhaps
It stirs when the ships persist, forbearing

40. This world's treasures were bare to my eye
Gleams that lure with their lightning, I refrain

41. Glories of beauty, status, and bounty
Mines of light all generous

42. And passion dressed them that they confuse me
Like a sky waking in glimpses then glooming

43. And I did not hesitate, chose and loved them
And their dreams, not bartering when appraised

44. I summarized a world in my heart and a universe
As scattered knowledge is summarized in prose

45. And a garden summarized in a bottle of perfume
And vineyards in a cup of wine

46. I turned away from passion like the ascetic
While residing, destined, and dwelling in it

47. And how can I when passion emanates from the soul?
It is the scent and the pure scent is fragrant

48. Fate and time resembled in nature
Both the prevailing, tyrannical oppressors

49. And I excuse it over any blame, bend
Reproach my heart alone and blame

50. And if my poetry portrayed refusing the critic
The youth would reprimand, criticizing

51. They would rebuke me at the lake, cursing
While I stroll by its banks, delightful

52. And flutter upon the heart of the stranger
Hovering like butterflies confused

53. I removed the heart's arrows when I took off
Its armour, like removing painful nails

54. And they flowed upon my heart so I hid
It was bleeding from all the arrowheads, enduring

55. And were it not for them, defiance would not tame me
Nor would the difficult make me endure

56. Never would I wander Al-Buhayrah lake
Or rhyme in Wadi Al-Rabwah's countryside

57. When the lake's face appears gloomy to me
I insist, stormy and clouded

58. While Damascus' eternal face is serene
And the heavenly lakes' face just

59. I excuse not complaining of illness or harm
Rather, all are sick without their passion

60. And Al-Buhayrah's bay makes me sad when bare
Its green leaves now debris

61. I spread my hand to catch the water frivolously
As if the small waves are doves

62. And those passing shadows are gazelles
Each a shyness and caution on the meadows

63. Long exposed from the barren, saline land
Long covered by flocks of saline lands

64. Passion's ruins that did not stop a passerby
As ruins stopped travelers in the desert

65. No kisses of pebbles so the passion smells
And gets intoxicated by their fragrance, fascinated

66. The ignorant night dresses it while the same
Morning like darkness flooded the darkness, animalistic

67. And the morning sun is a hearth it holds
For the wrath of royal hunts, forbidden

68. It dispels and reveals from the clouds' branding
As it dispelled the miserly from the orphan

69. And dawn complains of its abandonment, hurt
Its abandonment lonesome and constricting

70. It refused the dawn's efforts as if
Lazy, spoiled, drowsy, sleeping

71. And darkness embraced the pour as shadows
As if the sleeping shadows are bodies

72. Al-Buhayrah's bay confronts me with its plaint
Both concerned with time's injustice

73. I complain to it of afflictions and it's as if
We are intimates consoling intimates

74. I complain yet You have the wind and darkness
And the jinn have types of shadows, stars

75. You have thousands of ghosts, lovers
Revealing the lake's secrets fascinated

76. That gather the lake's secrets scattered
Wanderers in the world of mystery roaming

77. And dwells in its bosom standing and sitting
A secrecy that noisy silence bustles in

78. And a nightingale challenging the bustle singing
And secrecy wrapped beauty until passion complained

79. And luxurious silk and brocade envied
So forgive its blame if its charm does not appeal

80. It is your imagination not the secrecy's fault
So the birds are endeared and attached

81. When it extends the birds above it
Yearn for the village's hospitality and sitting

82. So, O my desert's shame, neither partridge nor francolin are safe
Nor a dove's eye rested in insecurity, blind

83. Nor did a turtledove scorn the distant nest
With its fierce snaring hunter, resolute

84. The birds complained of human injustice and gazelles complained
As well as plants in the desert, woeful

85. So my Lord, none stronger than the birds' nest
Nor shepherd for the gazelles, indebted

86. Nor frightening the desert partridge
While a rose relieves its heat and clouds

87. And every cloud that passed in the sand, continual
And every hoopoe for the gazelles, continual

88. Sands like disabled, jobless threads
Makers busied with the cold, evil

89. So inspire it with disabled passion and scent
And poetry of steeds composed and fragrant

90. And O my Lord, in man and bird find refuge
Except You, the wingless blind are oppressed

91. And protect any crop from disputing its fertility
Wasteland and wind - do not thin - debris

92. Wheat satisfied the birds with its charity
So they longed for it, paradise and bliss

93. And my Lord, You know I love Damascus
And devote while my love for Damascus lasts

94. And in its soil I have some most beloved
Protectors, when the brave sought allies

95. They fell in succession, one after one
Upon it the necklace's breaking, though organized

96. Their deaths were led at dawn and the prime of their youth folded
Generous and perfect

97. And I'm excessive in reminiscing to drain its spring
But the spring of memories is brimming

98. If I say it overflowed then surged again
With waves of memories crashing and attacking

99. And sometimes it lowers its murmuring veil
Like dawn's smile veiled in musk

100. And in every meadow I have from Damascus a connection
And in every bay a sanctuary and shrine

101. And every place in you, even in harm
Is glory, and all estrangement from you is disgrace

102. My youth, had it not met gazelles
And the youthful breeze, its poisons not met me

103. And my Lord if I praised while facing Damascus
Then You are Forgiving of sins, Merciful

104. God's forgiveness cheers the sin when
The sin appears to it handsome