My Village!!

Dedicated to the toiling sons of my village...
a gift of precious love...
they who turned the wasteland into gardens...
and the dust into purple...

She lived in bliss, secluded in the bosom of the hills... a forest of lions, a covert of gazelles...
Beauty sprinkled her with the dews of contentment... welcome to her bounty!! How sweet she is!...
Soft is life there, and tranquil its shade... down whose gilded path a lifetime was led...

Ah, my sister!! Never has humiliation passed over your slopes, nor has ignorance crept there...
O resting-place of the soul from its misery... O life of the spirit in the cradle of pride...
In you, companionship is my everlasting shade... driving off care and dispelling afflictions...

Cradle my virgin hopes as long as you will... and summon the star-bright souls...
Your precious covenant has run in our free blood.. we would ransom whatever you ask...
We shall make life shine in an age of bliss... radiant with dreams, sweet and good...

You, my sister, are the lodestar of our resolve... and of our love—so make light of sorrow...
My comrades have taken up the light... that the dawn may crowd out the flashing lightnings...
We have pledged never to see night in you... and to lift away the veils...

Welcome, O procession of resolve... to the army of your sons, hail and welcome...
With brows wrapped round in earnest toil... that have sought no goal but the heights...
Their flute is the ring of their pickaxes... turning the wasteland and the hills into gardens...

Latakia, February 7, 1948