1. The mornings of life greeted the quarters of Lebanon
And auspiciousness rose for whoever lived in Damascus

2. Oh people of Syria! You have adorned my neck
With a favor beyond any necklace of gems

3. Tell the generous one who extended a hand to me
You moved away though you are the one who draws near

4. When I reconciled with myself to remember an intimate friend
Can remembrance occur except after forgetting?

5. I do not blame a stingy friend
As long as he spurns my gratitude and knowledge

6. It delighted me that I stood reciting poetry to you
In a school adorned with the jewels of wisdom

7. And a happiness spread through me the like of which
Cannot be matched by the return of youth to my hair and body

8. I have a home in the expanses of the Nile that I treasure
And I have here under your protection another home

9. I saw upon its pyramids garments
Of glory that I see above Lebanon

10. Neither it nor the beauty of its grandmother
Has been erased by the passage of time or the new

11. I imagined myself a guest among you but instead
My family, companions, loved ones and neighbors

12. From every lofty, sublime, and knowledgeable one
Happy with glory, overjoyed with hospitality, gentle

13. Walking to glory proudly smiling
As if he, when appearing, were a well-trained cypress sapling

14. You have settled in a paradise Fayha’a that has no flaw
Except that it is in the fleeting human world

15. If you contemplate God’s making of it
You will not find in its creation any work of man

16. In its plains, heights, and ranges
Is the cure for the sick and the solace for the suffering lover

17. And in the murmuring of the breeze through its gardens
Is a spirit that consoles every grieving heart

18. Wherever you have chosen as your dwelling in Lebanon
In every place are gardens and springs

19. Oh if only I were at leisure in my life
With my heart whole and my soul obedient

20. I would spend the summer in Lebanon happily
Not changing it for sweets or trellised vines

21. Oh for a stop in the cedars of the Mountain I long for
Among the pine, cypress and acacia

22. My soul is inspired by its heavens to revelation
And a demon succumbs to the poetry of Satan

23. I will challenge you in speech following the example
Of the poet of the cedars in craft and mastery

24. It is inevitable that if your talents flourish here
They will surpass and recreate the era of Hassaan

25. The goodness of the air and the charm of the garden
Have polished the tablet of imagination, tempting me and you

26. Whoever desires to witness Paradise made manifest
Let him visit your neighborhoods in the month of April

27. On the tomb of Salah al-Din, may its soil be lost
As are its inhabitants, wandering with illness

28. He builds and destroys in old poetry and in
New, so excellent is this destroyer and builder

29. When you detect a flash of lightning in my poetry
Some of the excellence in speech is my excellence

30. Tend, tend to your poet, tend to your writer
May God reward them for me however they speak

31. I see men from the new world in the old world
Building the best structures

32. They have erected in Syria an everlasting miracle
With manifold springs watering every thirsty one

33. If they have guided you, their early ones
Used to guide their early ones, ages upon ages

34. It is no surprise they have prospered on earth and originated
Therein wondrous innovations of reform and construction

35. For that is their world, from its air they have stripped
The veils of wind from the world of Solomon

36. The glory of Umayyad rule has vanished and gone
And in Damascus has faded the era of Ibn Marwan

37. Do not ask after the era of Cordoba
How it was erased between swords and fires

38. Teach every living being at its birth
That devotion to God and the nations are two debts

39. Binding in their ordainment, rewarding in their recompense
So detach your soul from desiring loss

40. The Nile in its passion as it flows to Jordan
Conveys to Barda the longings and infatuations

41. And in Iraq it has found yearning in its Tigris
And Euphrates, and longing for Sayhan

42. If what we are experiencing of estrangement
And conflict between peoples and religions continues

43. I will share the view of Ma’arri when
What afflicted people from wrongdoing and aggression overwhelmed him

44. The earth will not be cleansed of filth and vileness
Until Noah makes it undergo another Flood

45. My youth has passed and my prime evaded me
And illness has toppled pillar after pillar of my being

46. And here I have reached sixty asking it
Whether it has prolonged or prepared my shroud

47. I witnessed the death of my peers so it gives me tidings
Of a repose in which are my soul and basil

48. How many a relative has shunned me, hurting me
And how many a dear friend passed before me making me weep

49. Whoever used to ask about my people, they have
Turned away quickly leaving me that cupbearer

50. I have wearied of standing every instant
Crying and stringing sorrows upon sorrows

51. If you leaf through my book to read me
You will find elegies make up half my book

52. I came seeking healing and yearning drives me
To your dwellings though my return is uncertain

53. So lodge me in a place where I may rest
And the distress may disperse from my heart

54. And provide me with gratitude at your tables
Containing delicacies and varieties

55. It suffices me, and it suffices to forbid me, the generosity
I have nearly forgotten through it my family and maternal uncles

56. When I visited Beirut’s markets I did not notice
My eyes taking in its plain a Greek shop

57. So I said, rejoicing, to God belongs their worth
For the successful are not but the vigilant

58. They have trod the land of Columbus but I have not felt
From them the footfall of a confused foreigner

59. They have led and built and proven their merit on its shoulders
As ones undertaking affairs with cooperation

60. If the racecourse is too narrow for their resolves
It calls to them and they make it a thousand courses

61. They consult only their ambitions if they are determined
That refuse remaining in humiliation and subjugation

62. And they do not care if their graves are
Scattered straw or bellies of whales

63. Their illumination is in the universe, their roots are in Syria
And the roots grow, transported between countries

64. If they do not succeed in gaining a power that will settle them
In emigration they have found power a settler

65. Or if Syria was too narrow for the proof of their ability
In emigration they have come with proof

66. We have indeed seen honorable men among them
Who were for us here the best example

67. Whenever we have met in any society
Kinsman with kinsman and comrades with comrades

68. How many traces in the regions of the Nile’s expanse
Are there for al-Yaziji, Sarrouf, and Zaydan

69. And how many monuments for their achievements are in the papers
Possessed of al-Muqattam and the Pyramids as columns

70. When will I see the East most high and most distant
From the West’s greed for it, nothing but rapacious

71. Affection will flow untrammeled in its veins
Like the flow of water amidst the rivers

72. No difference between a Buddhist, Muslim, Jew or Christian living in it
What is wrong with its world that when its intimate companion turned away from it

73. It retreated without signaling?
The era of Al-Rashid in Baghdad has vanished and gone

74. And the era of Ibn Marwan has folded up in Damascus
Do not ask after the era of Cordoba

75. How it was wiped out between swords and fires
Teach every living being at its birth

76. That devotion to God and country are two debts
Binding in their decree, rewarding in their recompense

77. So divorce your soul from desiring loss
The Nile in its yearning as it flows to the Jordan