1. Ask the eyelids about his breast, a river
To extinguish what is inflamed in the heart, embers

2. And from the plentiful tears of the crying eyes what it contains
Alleviates sorrows that have disturbed the chest

3. Leave the drops of tears fall upon it
For I, with what is in my mind from you, know best

4. So no sadness is like the shepherds you see
Tomorrow guiding them, and their command is a command

5. And this deafening roped camel, half of it
When it was driven, it crossed over the rugged terrain

6. So it became in the morning, complaining to God alone
And what is hoped for except Him to relieve affliction

7. Biting with a sword from his honorable sons
To overturn them on their stomachs and whip their backs

8. Affected, I called for patience at its onslaught
But my patience left me repeating, no patience

9. Great affliction, O honorable ones, by your right
Take a share of it, I have seized a share for you

10. And if I know that in your chests
Are embers, below them my burning liver

11. And your increase of the horror of affliction is your hearing
The screams of your children crying out loudly for you

12. And four prisoners, their stomachs fell
With their limbs spread, their hands chained from prisoners

13. An affliction, thus history willed its atrociousness
That foreigners from other nations speak of it

14. Prisons, painful beating, and humiliation
Reprimand, punishment, though they committed no sin

15. And their crime is only the feeling that they
Were harmed, so they screamed from their pain loudly

16. So say to the dense of spirit, this is a blow
Millions sighed in our Maghreb from it

17. They all felt the pain and grief
Does the afflicted not know that it is an affliction?

18. So from the silent, who could not describe his illness
And from the speaking, from his speech he found no patience

19. Except you, who was created with a pure spirit
And a heart of stone, and the rock was not softened

20. It will receive from the gloomy fate a rousing
To you, so you know from it what should be known

21. It is fate relating the sea’s state of calm
When the sea’s tide is long, then expect the ebb

22. And grant them pardon, where is their punishment from you?
A punishment exceeding, not deficient or abundant

23. If the politicians and prohibitors took them
France's leading statesmen of the great world

24. They would not gain from them except with justice
That entitles them to pardon when they deserve reprimand

25. O visitors of Fez, when you pass
A prison that confined its oppressed children

26. For in that despicable place they tasted
The flavors of a free life, so they found bitterness sweet

27. And paved, with knowledge, the path of their glory
So they were not imprisoned by compulsion though imprisoned by compulsion

28. A youth's life is comprehending the secret of his life
And death is nothing but ignorance of that secret

29. So he sees in the darkness the light of insight
And in honey and sweetness, he tastes patience

30. And how many free men lived their lives in prison
While a prisoner's resident slept seeing it as a palace

31. So say to the conscious whose intoxication with glory was long
Tomorrow does not leave intoxication in your heads

32. The people of Fez truly, that your children
Met from the turns of fate what enraged fate

33. An affliction as its people's wretchedness willed
And an incident as its great enormity willed

34. For the valley did not hoard its gems
To string them as tears and scatter them as scattering

35. Previously, the water's burble, what you hear of it
And now listen, the burble has become bitter crying

36. So beautiful patience, O son of Fez, from accepting fate
For your right in the lower life will be fulfilled, and in the next

37. Will meet from the Judge what He is worthy of
And with disgrace in the lower life, the remembrance will remain for Him

38. And will hand over to the days all their account
When the days ring out a day for Him with a spark