1. O mighty ocean's neighbor, I ask
Have you wronged your neighbor or has he wronged you?

2. If only you both lived in harmony and kindness
If only your space were not too confining

3. Let us compete in pottery and judge
Time, if pottery can be proof

4. It rages, repelling its straying waves
While your elite left not its guidance astray

5. It conveyed the prohibition with its waves and you conveyed them
In continuous undulations through the ether

6. And guided Phoenician men to the paths of ascension
And sent us among worlds as men

7. He in antiquity was characterized by his deeds
And I see you supreme in modernity, in action

8. Glory is not for one who remains prideful of his glories
Like the glory of one who is freely glorified through them

9. O Byblos, and mighty neighbor, as you see
Who is nobler in time's bestowal?

10. She magnified you, exemplifying through you her glory
When you were an example for the great heart

11. Had she heeded the neighborly right,
She would have guided her pearls to you and held them precious

12. Beauty is not a pearl worn as adornment
Gray hairs are most beautiful in heads

13. And a soul like yours glistening with guidance
Is finer than its pearls in their settings

14. You stood amid greatness and carved it
Into matching greatness, peaks among peaks

15. You are three boundless seas I surveyed
She and it; glories, and you perfection

16. I examined my days and wandered their fields
Seeking my youth, left and right

17. By the laughing joys of companionship and its vows
I found only what my imagination conjured

18. I awoke from childhood, and lo, childhood
Were memories of joy now gone, and vows now gone

19. Dearer to me than youth and its promises
Is the lore I was raised with, so it became my being

20. If I forget the transports of youth
I'll not forget the supreme teacher

21. If you wish men for their knowledge
Or the child for the makings of men

22. If the mother of languages rewarded his striving
To benefit her, she would make him proverbial

23. His knowledge disclosed the secret of eloquence
Some disclosure is made lawful

24. Time forged a new path, so forge with us
A language matching your time's state

25. He presented languages, initiating with the one he protected
So let him proceed renewing it and enjoy tranquility

26. We are in a time whose literati
Deem rhetoric free and merely demonstrative

27. The scabbard held back the polished sword, so it did not flash
But the scabbard wearied it, and it melted and streamed

28. Would that the eminent took up renewal as their habit
And spoke as our professor spoke

29. My homeland, and this abode, prided in him
So it repeatedly spawned for it lions

30. He knew beauty and sheltered it in his heart
And made it freely flow from his soul

31. He who conveys the modern West greetings
The Orient sends them a message through him

32. They who cared for us, of his people
Became for us, on the day of boasts, family

33. Glorify through them a people, as though their souls
Were created to create the like of heroes

34. The generous, with what their faiths contained
So when knowledge opposes you, you come with wealth

35. O daughter, charmer of the age with her knowledge
She lifted the age through it, and it lifts her not

36. Prohibitions walked freely in your vast field
For you unleashed prohibitions from their shackles

37. The independent, his soul is yours
You who taught independence

38. My wonder at the cross' bearer to guidance
I carried with the cross a crescent

39. I sought refuge in the name of your knowledge's glory from harm
It protects the generous and diminishes the virtuous

40. O crucible of ethics, you've done enough, for we
Were, by what you taught us, doers

41. The ocean, your neighbor—had it pledged you protection
And pledged Byblos protection in succession

42. It gave me its precious pearls as a gift
So I made them into a statue for both of you