A Colloquy

Like a wounded bird withdrawn from its companions until it heals, she sat dreaming on a high rock, far from the noise of the city and its clamorous world.

She looked about her, and before her eyes passed memories at which her wounded heart fluttered.

On just such a moonlit night she had been happy, content, serene at his side.

She looked at the moon, then let her lips fall upon the rock, kissing it and wetting it with her tears.

She looked at the moon reproachfully, chidingly, and began her colloquy with it:

O full moon, how the sight of you makes the lover remember his beloved!

How many souls let you hear their whispering and confide their secrets to you!

How many pleading, bleeding hearts have found in keeping company with you their solace and consolation!

How many a wretched, sorrowing soul has changed its state, while you have not changed!

You alone are the witness of what my heart conceals, the listener to my complaint.

Tell me then, O moon, what do you do with those secrets?

Tell me — will you give back to us what you have robbed us of, love's raptures and its beautiful joys?

Ah, how many of life's fallen implore you to lighten what weighs upon them — but you are deaf, heedless of their entreaties and their supplications!

Yes — whenever I press my questions, you mock me and hasten toward your setting!

Gently, my night-companion! Gently — do not hate, and do not envy.

The moments of intimacy and the raptures of love have passed!

They have gone, and the days of misery and wretchedness have come!

Woe to you — can you not at least show me where my beloved is?

Do you see him now? Where is he?

Ah, the beating of my heart has quickened... I feel that it wants to burst from my breast and rise up to the world of the infinite!

I feel a trembling in all my limbs...

And here sad, broken cries rose up from the rock...

Sighs and gasps and unceasing sobbing rose up...

followed by broken words whose echo rang in the void...

Faithless... traitor... deceiver... woe to him.

Hama, October 3