poetry · Issue No. 2, February 1949 · p. 2

A Secret

Khalil Hawi

سر · خليل حاوي

I am your companion of the nights of madness,
I am the secret, if they only knew;
theirs it is that you lavish
your favor — the favor of one who pities.
Yet behind your bending, what refusal,
and what a mask
that hides even suspicion's furthest reach;
they see you above passion and madness,
and I whisper: "the secret — if they only knew."

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