What has befallen you today, my homeland?
You live in a time outside of time?!
Extinguish with me a hatred that bleeds
So that I may banish the devil from my Aden
The devil of my land is a greedy merchant
Pleasing in the clouds of tobacco
His weights, no matter, are deficient
He weighed wealth, but not religion
His dollar is the hunger of the poor
Woe to him, a gluttonous merchant
I hung my heart in the darkness like a moon
Arabized, I entrusted my sorrow to it
And my poetry rubbed against the winds,
So they came blowing the fires in my trials
I traversed the deserts, my qibla a mountain
To which the swift ships yearn
I built a fortress upon the waves
To which the flower of cities longed
I seek no hope from my present
Unless I establish my dwelling upon the hills
I believed... Believe like me, O homeland
Whose rulers are from a pagan museum
The Lord is full of light... Woe to them
Drowning in the sea of disbelief and the rot
The people of the world, their price is gold
But my people are worthless
My eyes saw you, my beloved... No wonder
If they loved you and my ears rejoiced
I loved you for two lifetimes... Did longing
Gift you a lifetime that roamed within the body?
My soul has protected it since my creation
What has befallen you, love, that you did not protect it?!
Take the rest of my life, for there is no homeland
That is sweet... and no land that has embraced my shroud.
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