1. When will you make me happy, my homeland?
My ambitions have slipped from my hands.

2. I left you, though yearning does not bring me close to you,
Nor does patience, if I call upon it, help me.

3. I battled the nights for you, and whoever
Battles his nights is exhausted.

4. As for youth, it is filled with wishes,
And as for time, it did not make me happy.

5. Protect the sanctity of your glory,
For if you do not protect it, you will not be praised.

6. Do not make light of its honor, for loyalty
Is evidence of the nobility of one who contends.

7. I lacked manliness the day ransom was wanted
For my country, and I cannot ransom myself.

8. When a man dies ransoming his homeland,
He has died a martyr's death.

9. Barren are the lofty heights, desolate,
With much loss and distress.

10. When the birds flock there to rest,
Their cries echo over the frozen mountain tops.

11. Gloomy are the landmarks, their darkness not dispelled
By a morning whose night was jet black.

12. Empty of its people, it is no longer their homeland,
Just a place forever abandoned.

13. Separation makes us hate being neighbors
To those of hardened hearts and churning hatred-

14. Neighborhood like that in our breasts,
Which will not cool unless separated.

15. When we neared the land of Lebanon,
The yearning of the exiled overwhelmed us.

16. We did not notice the separation, but we cried
Over a desolate, barren mountain.

17. Time has clothed itself in its old worn out garb,
So cast a look in which you can see a sky

18. Overlooking four supports propped up.
The dwellings have been abandoned by their people

19. For every comfortable, prosperous resort.
Only the child remains in his cradle,

20. And only the crippled old man remains.
Councils of rule include none

21. But the greedy self-seeker.
Resources flow in vain, so they

22. Do not quench the burning thirst.
Houses of worship stand empty,

23. Though aloft, reaching the heights.
Their monks enjoy wealth

24. While every young man is deprived.
What binds us to you, O homeland, but

25. Pangs in the heart that have not subsided?
We complained of separation, and you of isolation,

26. But which of the two causes more pain?
Make your people’s calamity less

27. By being patient with your miserable life.
Many a youth was maddened by his homeland

28. And so turned to a more distant land.
Some toss sleeplessly in bed

29. While others seek livelihood but do not rest.
Ask my homeland what right it has over me

30. Other than that it is where I was born!
But it would be blasphemy for me to leave it

31. If my purpose was doubted.
Were it not for my loyalty to noble people

32. And the soil of my glorious father,
I would have abandoned it without remorse,

33. And we would not have met again.
I love my country even if I gained

34. Naught from it but injustice, to which I'm unaccustomed.
Your country is all your hopes, so rise up

35. For it as much as you can to defend it.
When asked about Lebanon, say it's the homeland

36. Of my God - pray and bow to it.