1. My friends, do not blame him for greeting
With sighs at the dovecote

2. You wept as a stranger, so you made me weep
Our souls are twins like doves

3. Your tears flowed remembering Iraq
So my tears flowed remembering Damascus

4. How many talented poets have wept
For the ruins of my home and passion

5. And lived in false hopes
But their souls never attained their wishes

6. When we built castles of hope
We saw their ruins and rubble

7. We both suffered, so I almost died
My body is worn out by disease

8. My youth passed quickly and
The specter of happiness did not visit even in a dream

9. We sought the best things fruitlessly
Where the ignoble were victorious

10. Alas, thus we were born
To suffer, with no smiles in the lands

11. Someone like you, I crossed seas and traversed
Deserts and stayed up due to too much worry

12. I melted my heart and my teary eyes
My soul's ambitions are like embers

13. And I did not reap except regret
For what I planted, the fate of the generous

14. I warbled like a nightingale among people
But the warbling is gone and staying is difficult

15. Your poetry tore the veil of time
And your fame in it like stripes on Syrian cloth

16. The hearts repeated it, so it was
For your soul revenge after death

17. And eulogies melted over it, for I am
Intensely passionate about the poetry of passion

18. What eulogy would not melt over
Your rhymes, which are my arrows

19. So your soul flowed like the souls of victims
To the tune of longing and gloom

20. Sadness and love have the sweetest voice
The highest poetry and the strongest words

21. And your heart's faith in poetry shone
Comforting you beautifully behind the veil

22. While my reckless heart has no solace
And in it despair and doubt collide

23. How in despair it has a scream
Whose echo recurs in the darkness

24. Our poems are a language between us
Yet to people they are gibberish

25. The Arabic language is not heard
By the masses who are mostly asleep

26. Its gems are like gold that kills its owner
And like us saying peace be upon it

27. The Arabic of this age is not
Like that nurtured in the tents

28. It rouses armies, recites poetry
Gallops the steed, and unsheathes the sword

29. Better than these youths are
The bones of the glorious invading ancestors

30. Where are dignity, generosity
Loyalty and protectiveness?

31. We live in hope that behind
The clouds are stars

32. So let's sing and forget worries
For life will end tomorrow