1. We slept and woke to find ourselves drowning,
And death was lurking close at hand,

2. Then came a destined respite
In which time worked its wiles and struck in our weakness.

3. We pulled ourselves together and found new strength
To shake the pillars of the nights, and they collapsed.

4. There was a wound of love lodged in our souls,
God looked on it, and it healed.

5. We sought a free and unfettered life
Beneath God's shade, not the shade of nations.

6. And truly, those threads will not unravel
Who cling to God's cord and are garmented in patience.

7. A man's own conceit spells his ruin
Dissension spells ruin for a people.

8. None among us turns tail or veers sideways
Or dams the Nile to flood the meadows.

9. O youth of Egypt, tell Egypt what you were sold for,
Tell it what grand ideals go for these days.

10. With struggle does the will grow keener
With vigilance atop the heights is rest made sweet.

11. I boast not of the past, nor count the present
Mean or sublime in fortune's fickle gaze.

12. My sole concern is that I see you tomorrow
Lions still, as you were in the jungles of yore.

13. The only youth deserving of the name
Is he who'd plunge into the fire for glory.

14. Do not imagine, life is but the pursuit of dreams,
Those days are done, dead and gone.

15. Life is a struggle 'twixt poverty and wealth,
A contest 'twixt fitness and disease.

16. Fire with fuel − and should the stoker sleep,
The flames will spread and rage.

17. Shake off your slumbers and toil for the heights,
The heights exact a price from those who sleep.

18. You'll gather nothing, dreaming of its lips
Whether bidding adieu or greeting the new morn

19. except regret. Better not to wish at all.
Resolve spells a man's mettle when he's resolved.

20. You applaud resolve and marvel at its edge,
Quenching fervor like water douses flames.

21. Consider Japan in the East, its standards flutter
at the pinnacle unfurled.

22. They battled ignorance before we did
til ignorance was beaten and outclassed.

23. Ask it not of the elite but its plebs,
its ambitions scale the highest citadels.

24. Ambitions drive science toward the noblest ends
unhampered by fatigue or ennui,

25. so that whenever it attempts something its days
fall into ranks behind it serving as troops.

26. It matters not if the ground shakes under it
or star collides into star above it stumbled.

27. It made the rising sun its emblem, as if
the sun's enough symbol for sublime renown.

28. Thus it rests not, seeking to climb nigh
the sun's domain: unclimbed terrain.