The Woman's Prayer
The Editors

The prayer that "The Woman's Voice" raised over Radio Lebanon at the start of the new year.

O Lord!

Woman on earth raises her supplications to You in the new year, and woman, O God, has never prayed for anything but good; never, on any day, was she a butcher pronouncing Your name over the victim.

Nor has she ever lifted her heart to You, O God, but that in her heart were springs of goodness she wished might pour out over all mankind.

O Lord! Woman on earth raises her supplications to You — hear her prayer, O God!!

Restore to mankind their faith in goodness!! And to the great hearts, consolation! For the downtrodden orphans, make in every heart a father and a mother.

To the mothers, O God, restore their children to their bosoms, from the unknown wastes of the earth, the horizons of the sky, and the far reaches of the seas!!

To the lost woman, restore, O God, her faith in life and her nobility!!

And shatter the savage fangs of man, that no mother may again be bereaved of her only son, no wife of her husband, no sweetheart of her beloved!!

To the houses of men restore well-being and health and the joy

of life!

And to our barren fields, the bounty that once flowed among us: oil and wine and honey!!

To the ruler, O God, an enlightened conscience by which to govern God's servants!

And grant, O God:

To the poor man, a richness of soul and heart beside which the dust of gold dwindles.

To the naked, covering! To the hungry, food!!

To the broken, consolation! To the refugee, shelter!!

To the sick, health... to the outcast, a homecoming...

To the stranger, kin and a homeland...

O God... woman on earth has never prayed for anything but good, nor has her voice ever been raised except in tenderness; and woman raises her supplications to You tonight — answer the prayer of woman, O God...

The Virtuous Woman Dazzles
From Chinese Poetry
You know that I have a husband,
yet you present me with two shining pearls.
I pitied your distress and hung them
on my red silk gown.
The towers of my house adjoin the imperial gardens,
and my husband serves in the palace guard.
I know your intentions are pure as the sun and the moon,
but I am faithful to my husband's vow,
a vow that binds me to him in life and in death.
I return to you your two shining pearls,
and I feel two tears about to run down my cheeks.
Why did we not meet before I married?
"From al-Makshuf"
Chang Tsi
A Secret
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."
Khalil Hawi
4