1. No welcome to you, O this year,
You have shown no mercy for the afflicted.

2. Your onset brought us many sorrows,
For the beneficial men to establish.

3. Two signs from the signs of Egypt you buried,
So the pyramids wept for them in you.

4. You took Shukri while he was in his prime,
And you struck down Ibrahim while he was a leader.

5. They both served the Nile’s lands in their time,
And medicine is a plant untouched by clouds of sorrow.

6. People turned to the Westerner in treatment
And roamed afar from the tombs, bewildered,

7. Until Shukri came forth proving his precedence,
That the son of Egypt is a daring experimenter.

8. And Ibrahim established the most eloquent proof
That the lion’s den is entered by the courageous.

9. The students walked in their footsteps,
So flags split from their knowledge.

10. They swore to medicine to elevate it
Above the stars, so the oaths were binding.

11. The lands of medicine came to tell the story
Of a paradise wherein Buqrat the Wise has his station.

12. The Nile's patients saw that their griefs
Cast off grief, so no more sickness plagued them.

13. O Egypt, it suffices what you have attained of wishes,
The hopes were true and the dreams correct.

14. Your children walked as you desired, to the heights,
And they remained loyal as you taught them.

15. You extended your voice after its long hush,
So Islam called the good tidings to you.

16. You raised your head before the proud preventer of sins,
Among the kingdoms where ambitions bow.

17. How many are your surgeons whose right hand
Is like a healing balm at surgery?

18. His incision knife was forged, and if it draws blood,
It is out of mercy, so the wounded smile.

19. Successful all of whose opinions hit the mark,
When the patient’s illness twists and puzzles confound.

20. He listens with an ear that does not fail when
Another ear buzzes and the hearing is blocked.

21. And when the illness' complexities make its matter obscure,
The ambiguity comes to know its hidden creeping.

22. It interrogates the pains though they are silent,
Until the pains themselves start to speak.

23. How many souls has it saved from the hands of death,
And restrained the rein of death when it was stubborn!

24. And the eye doctor whose inclination carries
A light when blindness overwhelms the eyes.

25. His lens is as if cast by Jesus son of Mary,
So the darkness dispersed and clarified.

26. And the pediatrician whose teeth still haven't come in
And who hasn't been weaned from the breast.

27. The sickness complains to him with his eyes, though he has
No speech apart from twitches and moans.

28. So how much has he diagnosed, and how often he hits the mark, as if
Revelation and inspiration are in his glance!

29. And the obstetrician whom the fetuses know his merit,
If the wombs have difficulty giving birth.

30. How much in their darkness has he illuminated for them
Ways that imaginations lose and wander!

31. Were it not for his hands passing over their bodies,
The pangs of labor would have overwhelmed them and agony afflicted them

32. With these youths, O Egypt, congratulations!
For the likes of them the days take pride.

33. And greeting and peace to your two doctors
Whom the archer of death has stricken.