1. You bore your burden in the expanse of the field,
And attained the best of human goals.

2. You spent your life in this world working
For remembrance and a long second life.

3. You were loyal to the noble covenant of the confident one
For whom loyalty was part of faith.

4. Egypt's trust was a safekeeping for ages, a conscience
For Egypt's foundations and pillars.

5. You kept it secretly alive among your people out of mercy
And made your death the time for its declaration.

6. Your secret, the secret of time, was revealed in
This fate, messages of the brethren.

7. Was everything they said about truth? And about
History? Or to stir sorrows?

8. They mentioned your calamity as Egypt's and her people's
In conduct, honor, and entity.

9. And they transmitted speeches about you while
Contemplating Egypt's horizons as you lay in your shroud.

10. Each sanctifies with evidence from the past and proof
His own making in tribulations.

11. And each narrator has his excuse in the reality
That was unavoidable in possibility.

12. A memory that harms, and the worst that hurts a young man,
Is the disquiet of conscience and confusion of sentiment.

13. The time came to judge men with zeal
And that was enough judging for the Judge.

14. Their conjectures clashed among the judges
From every side and every place.

15. They ask about the certainty that gives them rest,
While you have the two parties appealing to you.

16. The minister did not betray his master; rather,
The friendship of the Germans betrayed him yesterday.

17. A king passed away and another succeeded,
Favored for his country, so both are the same to him.

18. If the king's uncle was not his substitute,
Then who was more deserving of that, O Sultan?

19. What was of the gold of time with its crown
He alone of the uncrowned was deprived.

20. Truly, time and what we saw had no
Power of truth, it is the sinful villain.

21. Could he determine his fate
When his wrath and pleasure were equal?

22. Had we been able, we would not have oppressed
The people, neither kith nor kin.

23. May fire burn their hands, yet fondness and
Longing stir in our hearts.

24. We did not know if they were Egypt's invaders or
Its guards and protectors for a time.

25. Which of the two parties was loyal to its promise
When both promised without guarantee?

26. Often the weak were denied their share
Among the spoils by the most able peers.

27. Our booty was survival; seeking survival
Was not the nature of the brave.

28. They who consider each pact
From the deceiver to be evil aggression,

29. And giving freely if it comes
With disgrace worse than deprivation.

30. And the one helped to attain his due
By other hands is most deserving of abandonment.

31. The events of yesterday's Egypt bore off, and where are
The deeds of men for the present events?

32. Did the party insist on their terms
Or bring in an order unforeseen?

33. The deliberation of one anticipating tribulations - do I see it
Or the hesitation of the wavering weakling?

34. If what their enemy disclosed through it
Was good, what then is the wisdom of concealment?

35. Perhaps it was the respite the politics willed for us
The habit of concealment.

36. In Egypt the people of Egypt seek right, or
In mighty London and in Lausanne,

37. The earth moves toward the two eternities
Of utmost freedom and prosperity.

38. So kingdoms shake after their calm
And kingdoms become honored after humiliation.

39. I was the first warner with the flood
And I am the warner of the flood's return.

40. Where are the sincere advocates in Egypt
Among all the peoples and the countries,

41. Who recount her hopes, not what
The people of slander and calumny recount?

42. If what I aspire to prevailed
In the land, it would have the safeguard of security.

43. And each would live under the shade of peace, not
Under arms and fire.

44. Religion in this world is the treatment which
Is all that can be hoped for from faiths.

45. O master of counsel, whose view
Made the scale and measure needless,

46. And fighter of the east praised
By east and west,

47. Sheikh of the clan, were you sheikh of the zeal
Or son of the countries, self-sacrificing father?

48. You split partnership after its rise,
It distressed you though you were its first builder.

49. You wept over its deputies and sheikhs
And you were eulogized among nobles and notables.

50. And the hero who was a model
For venerable age and youth was missed.

51. O you who left the valley while your heart
Was anxious about this suffering prisoner,

52. What of your soul after you left it
Other than what you offered in kindness?

53. It deserved, having been sufficiently occupied,
To rest in peace afterward.

54. You granted me the old affection so I protected it
For you in my heart, and it became one of my helpers.

55. And I took from the first of your pages
Which faced good, my first principles and manifesto.

56. You gave me speech after silence, nights
When my soul was confined before my tongue was confined.

57. Both of us were burdened in the countries, and no burden
Made me forget its duty or humanity.

58. And the greatest care of souls was to care
For who stood for virtue and grace.

59. The truth above both parties I wanted it
Other than what you offered in sacrifice.

60. Do I have a place in the sky that I may
Meet my companions unlike the people of my time?

61. And escape the arrogant who ignored
My memory and resumed denying my presence?

62. He from whom I want love profits me
And he by whom I am troubled increases my worries.

63. I was angry for the people and the valley, so whoever
Once pleased them pleased me.