1. O mother of boys, you have been ransomed
They are the loyal folk, if only we knew

2. Their call so we responded as though
We returned to youth when we were called

3. I love more than middle age, though right
A fantasy of childhood visited us

4. And more delicious than nights of love, a feast
You organized with your faithful sons

5. God clothed him in light from his teeth
And the faithful soul revolved around him

6. Stand still we ask you about those meanings
And about the nonsense of time with us, ask us

7. Your youth and you are still blossoming in your fifties
And your sons are youthful, under forty

8. By God, they have not been disgraced, but
We went down to struggle as adventurers

9. We struggle for life and scorn it
It exhausts us though it does not scorn us

10. The world is nothing but a fierce war
It found its weapons in science and religion

11. With these prepare for it and fight
Fight in our ranks as winners

12. If you prepare yourself for great deeds
Prepare a strong character in youth

13. The greatest knowledge is nurturing beginnings
This you taught us and thus nurtured us

14. Ask the world, were your sons in it
Other than the deceased geniuses?

15. And they did not excel others except that
We learned likewise to be

16. You assured happiness for us the day we were
Under your shadow, united brothers

17. If patriotism fades in a people
Lebanon becomes the highest of foreheads

18. The strongest love called infatuation
What is called love reaches madness

19. Ask the mother of languages, every country
We opened to it unambiguous conquests

20. We established its glory wherever we established
And we were beneath it an impregnable fortress

21. When eloquence was mentioned beautifully to us
We mentioned its prominent, steadfast Shaykh

22. The pens warded off their stumbling, so we walked
On the path of eloquence, safe

23. As if glory weighed down his shoulders
And he groaned with its load, so walked steadily

24. Seventy does not bend him, but
It is the bones we call years

25. Stand, O mother of boys, and tell us
Tales of youth, if you remember us

26. Your sons today are our old image
Student life has not changed

27. And we are their example for tomorrow, so say
To them to read the days in us

28. Perhaps tomorrow will meet them with goodness
The worst of days is the ugliest we met

29. We want for our people a dear homeland
And ignorance insists on degrading us

30. If only virtues were deaf
And did not hear the moaning in the Shouf

31. Its people stabbed it vainly and forgivingly
And I see nothing but the despicable homeland

32. As youths we preach solidarity
And as elders we provoke the ignorant

33. You refused cursing, did not let us down
We hesitated before the majority

34. We preached to the people, if only they understood, but
The disease disobeyed us since it became buried in us

35. Leave us and the afflictions, for we have come
For your feast, congratulating nevertheless

36. Your father, history immortalized his mention
And his merit to parents was greatest

37. He built morals in Lebanon when
He built you, so was the best reformers

38. God's right hand, because without rhymes
We would have spoken uncompromisingly

39. Your life is the world's blessing upon us
So live with the world for a hundred