Zeena

Bliss upon you, Zeena—were the fragrance,
fresh, to drift toward it, it would beg pardon;
and, Zeena, short of you fall the morning clouds
with the clear sky, whatever rises or blooms,
and short of you the silence of butterflies at dawn,
the whisper of the evenings, the confiding of the peaks;
and short of you, O Zeena, wherever
the face of the earth takes shade among the roses.

And, Zeena, where is the fluttering of perfume
when you pass by—and the pouring of the dew;
and where, beside your grace when you smile,
is the lavender that opens at the morning;
and where, when you sigh, is a sail
that dared, for Lebanon, the horizon's unknown,
and stretched out shore upon shore,
bearing guidance to all the worlds?

And, Zeena, we never knew the daybreak
to rise so fair, so richly dewed;
nor was there ever in any mind a thought
of beauty that recedes the nearer it draws...
So your pardon—what god, do you suppose,
created you, an impossibility upon our earth,
who follows our gazes with bliss
and shuts his doors against us?

1942