1. I did not think I would weep for him
Or that my poetry would eulogize him

2. Or that after his calamity I would remain
Alive, my soul torn apart in elegies for him

3. Or that those I hoped would rescue him
On the fateful day were among his enemies

4. It cast its heroes into terrible destruction
Because they had fulfilled its dearest wishes

5. He had lived a long life in its palaces
Until every light faded from his tragedies

6. So neither the night distressed him with its darkness
Nor the dawn when it shone gave him guidance

7. If I were safe, I had dedicated to him
The essence of my past and future life

8. And I was keen that I would die for him alone
A redemption while all his family survived

9. But death comes at its appointed time
Not everyone who desires it meets it

10. And after him I have no life even if
My soul's breaths ransom him and mourn him

11. So I will reside only in his tomb
And feed only on his sorrows

12. I am nothing but a moan that remained
Wandering among the remnants of his traces

13. If I stand, my fickle fate knocks me down
With its calamities, drawing out its torments

14. And if I walk with it, its obscurities
Throw before my path nets of its snakes

15. The combined strength of the whole world
Stabbed my chest and what was inside it with one blow!

16. A catastrophe - or delusions of dreams
Which left their torments in my soul

17. Our years struggling were like dirges
Mourning the struggle, mourning the fate of its people

18. Yesterday they towered over tyranny
Exposing it with disgrace upon the world

19. Even tyrants unrelated to them were frightened
Never having any connection or affinity with them

20. But the tyrants saw it as a flame that uncovered
All their nakedness in their burrows

21. So they secretly conspired against us
And recruited against us every bribed traitor and doubter

22. And provoked thousands of tongues against us
To insult us with every wound and distortion

23. Every mercenary who, if he took our bribe, would
Lavish upon us every veneration and acclaim

24. Every tyrant whom, if we were pleased with,
Would congratulate us on betraying the people

25. Every blind person whose eyes we wanted to restore
Would explode his nights of passion against us!

26. And every deaf trumpet, if the dogs barked into it,
Its polishers would polish it to a shine

27. And they provoked the people against the people and repelled
Against them every misguidance and deception

28. Oh our people, half a century worshipping them
And not one offering you made satisfied them

29. You accepted them as your lords and lived for them
Granting them every sanctification and deification

30. You did not rise one degree from the depths of slavery
And tasted no comfort from your suffering

31. Nor did any of your flowing tears succeed
In reforming a tyrant drunk on straying

32. Nor did you follow those who dedicated
Their lives to you in advice and guidance

33. We build for you lofty honor and you demolish it
And we crush the idol tyrant but you rebuild it

34. We finish off your enemy the viper but you revive it
And we light a lamp but you extinguish it

35. You spent your life being bitten, and here I see
A snake in your lap that you tend

36. You complain to it of what you suffer yet it is
The source of the affliction in all that you suffer

37. Its sweetest wishes are your tears flowing
Its head resting arrogantly while you bow yours

38. And it heals your open bleeding wound
With poison, giving you a medicine that cannot cure you

39. So do not spend the lives of generations wallowing in weakness
Let the past and its sorrows suffice you

40. For your screaming at the doors does not move it
Nor does your prostration at the threshold satisfy it

41. Neither does your kneeling neck, slaughtered, satisfy its tyranny
Nor does your spilled blood quench its thirst

42. So extend your hand to the free men, taking
Refuge with them from the slavery you suffer

43. They died for your sake, and from their blood
A generation was born, kindled by memories and incited by them

44. It lives on in the great calamity and makes it
A lesson for future generations to teach

45. It will not accept the earth even if given as a price
To divert it from its path of struggle and principles

46. An uttered word by which a tyrant deceives it
Used to entice it, and promises used to tempt it

47. And it used to admire a thief who gifted it
A morsel he stole yesterday from mouths

48. It used to account the crocodile as its saintly
Hermit, from the length of tears it shed

49. It used to give its life to its ruler
Because he promised it the afterlife

50. It used to be terrified of a whip brandished at it
Thinking that enduring servitude would save it

51. And today it has matured from a yoke, and was ripened
By blood, and shaken by passions violently

52. It saw the tyrants pale with the terror of death
Missing that the violence of hatred gives it life

53. They said, “the people are finished, we will now hurl them
Into hell, wiping them out and eliminating them”

54. “So let every glimmer of emotion in them be extinguished
And every pulse of hope in them be crushed

55. And let their voices choke in the blinding flames
And their breaths burn in their mouths

56. So we can drink water as blood from their slaughter
And drink wine as tears from their tragedies

57. And rejoice the greatest joy at their mourning
And laugh today mockingly at their weeping”

58. “And we will possess all that he used to own
For we are more entitled to it than any of his family”

59. “And let people forget him so no mouth in the land will say
That he was a people who died, and we will eulogize him”

60. Oh betrayals, who betrayed and who killed?
Its coarse croaking ruins it and destroys it

61. The people are fiercer in their awakened rage
Than their killers, and more intense than their torments

62. It sleeps so that its slumber may fool the tyrants
And madden them from their dens

63. And hurry briskly towards its death
And soon tumble into its abyss

64. The people's concerns rose in my soul
And lifted me above what I had aspired to

65. And the millions who were killed
Empowered me to exact vengeance on the executioner

66. I have for the evil of the tyrants of earth a court
Where my poetry - its worst judge - tries them

67. I will summon to it every despot, and drag him
From his throne under a burden of atrocities

68. The idol they worship bows its head to me
When I raise my voice and call it

69. Its dearest wish is that I spare it
And bury it in the grave of its past

70. It does not know that I will join it
In its grave - increased in death or vision

71. I will make it taste death in poetry I compose
More severe than the death of Azrael's rhymes

72. A death intensified by the peoples' hatred
Of tyranny, growing in its horrors

73. My sarcastic wink will torment it and bewilder it
Away from hell, what is in it, and who is in it

74. I will dig up sighs from beneath the soil as rabid passions
Matured by centuries of its severity

75. And I will gather tears into a flood with which
I will remove the rule of evil from the world and banish it

76. I will fight injustice no matter how bright its façade
Or whatever its names may be

77. I will scourge the forehead of Genghis under the whip
And sear the flesh of Nero with heated brands

78. It is the same whether one who came in the name of the people
Oppresses them, or one from London came with tyranny seeking it!

79. I will expel Hajjaj in the name of the people
And I will twist the neck of John Bull in the name of the people

80. I will take the sighs from beneath the soil as fiery angers
Which its severity has matured over ages

81. And I will gather tears into a flood with which
I will remove the rule of evil and banish it

82. I fight injustice whatever its nature
Or however its names may be