1. My homeland defenders, answer the call to arms
O daughter of wisdom and mother of youth

2. Return to it its men, for its men
Are the young lions not old men of homes

3. They grow up worshipping its cedars
Learning to die beneath its banner

4. They are the sap that gives it life
While death brandishes its sword nearby

5. Hope in it preserved the bloom of its meadows
And the night grazing and echoing of its valleys

6. So its pastures remained as we knew them
In summer like slopes in spring

7. The hand of the Creator adorned it with a robe
Like He adorned its neighbors

8. A garment its Maker is jealous to protect
Not pleased if a hand reaches for its buttons

9. A lasting garment, generations pass as it endures
Made new as if born yesterday

10. Billowing, dragging its train on the mountains
With lightning flashing through its breast

11. The cedars are its motifs and legends
What your Lord said of it in scriptures

12. Angels circled its convent and smiled
Upon its flowers and strolled chanting

13. What David sang to his lyre
If Lebanon is not the Creator’s paradise

14. It is the terrace of His abode
From it houris gaze drunk without tasting

15. Aught but the dripping of its rivers
Scents of basil waft on its breezes

16. And birds flirt and chirp in its air
Before it a waterfall cascading

17. With the abundant Kawthar of its springs
And the murmuring cool of its brooks

18. As the vines laugh with ripening fruit
The moon peers from behind its peaks

19. Like the beautiful face gleaming from behind its veil
God praise this consecrated mountain

20. Fruit of bliss and place of holy light
In the melodies of its cliffs and gray hair

21. It recites its solemn scripture to generations
In the breaths of its zephyrs, sanctity

22. Dispelling the specter of its dusty ills
People visit even as life departs

23. Restored as life renews at dawn
Lebanon, sanctuary of life and fortress

24. Which contagions slide from its walls
Where the trailing clouds pour down blessings

25. Made holy by kissing its stones
If the glory of Hermon is troubled

26. By repeated afflictions
Longing escapes in its glory

27. While hardship escapes in its shame
Woe, sustenance is scarce

28. And the neighbor no friend to his neighbor
Woe, the meadow withered losing its bloom

29. When the offenders reaped its fruits
If Fakhr al-Din saw its state

30. He would weep and protest in disbelief
Or if news reached the tomb of Shehab

31. He would roar from his grave
Say to Saffa and the pine groves

32. What a vile brood assails its mystique
Those called its sons shunned Saffa

33. From their lives and blamed its sanctuary
Shunning bounty and coolness

34. Inclining to hellfire and heat
When did you find a land wronged by the innocent

35. God ordained its destruction
Fate avenges, not the one who spilled blood

36. Losing the place of his revenge
Pity Al Shouf the noble laid low

37. By its wicked against its righteous
Its foolish mocking its wise men

38. Its slaves lording over its freemen
Minds wavering in its retreats

39. Hermits confused in monasteries
Pity it, playground of my youth

40. Home of Ghassan’s fiery steeds
Vanity clouded its clear rose

41. And fouled its aromatic plains
Grief for this plight drew my elegy

42. Worthy of its valley’s echo
A sigh from one who stumbled

43. Poured by the ardent homeland to the ear of the heedless friend
A homeland crying for its youth whenever

44. It seeks defenders against the aggressor
O sanctuary of poetry, guide

45. Of the young mind, fulfilling its thoughts
Excuse the mourning that passed as your

46. Golden feast shone on its moons
I am one who sees Lebanon above his life

47. And the gleam of its star above its minaret
I see Fakhr al-Din ransomed all of Lebanon

48. From its rebels to its monks
I am one who sees pride in kissing its soil

49. And wishes to wipe its dust with eyelids
I am a verse inscribed in its rock

50. And a spark stamped by its flint