Sol 5.6

  1. … ’

    ’

    For ages... you have been the magic of expression,

    the anticipation of wishes and the dream of a sign.

  2. ’

    Through your long ages you were the daughter of the unseen; then

    civilization’s death-rattles foretold your revelation.

  3. ،

    An age crumbled, dying so that it might live,

    or perish, insensible to its own suicide.

  4. ’، :

    Its two wings reach the farthest limit of every star,

    while its desire is merchandise in every market.

  5. ’

    There, earth’s pretension to godhood sold off its claim,

    and prayer sold off purity.

  6. Or do you not glimpse how it races,

    grinding down the wind and the swathed women’s camel-litters?

  7. A clamor foretold your tender dawn—

    dazed, ablaze, and drinking in its own fire.

  8. ،

    ،

    A world, chicken-like, climbs and plunges,

    pecking grain from the bowels of filth.

  9. ،

    …

    It squandered the heart and became mere tree-trunks,

    wearing a borrowed humanity.

  10. Everything whispered of your appointed birth

    and breathed in its warmth and burgeoning green.

  11. One village gave another glad tidings of meeting you,

    and a star told a minaret of you.

  12. Visions raved your name, and there answered one another

    the cries of roosters from every continent.

  13. The wide horizon bathes in the promise of your eyes

    and, upon its two shores, forgets its waiting.

  14. The brows of the peaks are mirrors where there flared

    a spark from the chandeliers of your eyes.

  15. ،

    One day you will rise without an appointed hour,

    restoring the martyr’s radiance.

  16. ،

    You will sow tenderness in every valley,

    and a road through every market and alley,

  17. ،

    ،

    within reach of every balcony, in the longing

    of every neighbor, and the love of every woman next door;

  18. across the hills, until every mound understands

    the cave’s weariness and the cavern’s patient endurance.

  19. ،

    ،

    You shall come like prophecies, like rains,

    like summer, like an outpouring of verdure.

  20. You will fill existence with gentle, abundant justice

    after oppression armored in baseness.

  21. You will gather serenity into every touch,

    and upon every glance and smile.

  22. You will touch the fallen, and they will run;

    you will restore virginity to prostitutes.

  23. ،

    And you will fashion a world where the dunes bear fruit; in—

    it, even the stones will luxuriate.

  24. ،

    ،

    Wolves will abstain from rapine there, and there will forget

    the tyranny of arms its deadly craft.

  25. ،

    ،

    Evenings there will be languid eyes

    and customs; the sun will be more deliciously warm.

  26. ()

    ، ‘

    Its footsteps will bear April’s fragrance, or a still more fra—

    grant scent; its gaze will have a fresher radiance.

  27. ،

    ،

    Its melodies will have young women’s lips,

    and eyes in which excitement blossoms green.

  28. ؟

    What a world you will create—its fruits

    and its youth beyond what words can bear!

Sol 5.6