Ah... my beloved!...

It is spring... Its breezes have swayed the boughs of my heart, and the tremor of longing has run through my limbs...

In it I live...

So come, my beloved...

Sing with me the song of immortal hope!...

The garden smiles upon my dreams together with the beating of my heart.

The bird sets its melodies to the music of my heart...

The breezes blow, dancing with the supplications of my inmost soul!...

It is spring...

So come, my beloved!

The smile of your lips is still before me; the laughter of your spirit wakes rapture in my soul, and the melodies of your heart stir my feelings.

Toward you my longings creep, and my spirit yearns...

So come, my beloved!...

In the clearness of your eyes is the ray of hope.

In the tones of your voice is the gleam of life...

How happy I am in you!... We drink life from a single spring.

It is your spring, my beloved!...

Iraq — S. R.

"On the western slope of Mount Gerizim, where the olive groves fill hearts and eyes — there I grew used to sitting, in the late afternoon of every day, beside a blessed olive tree whose shade bent tenderly over my soul, and whose supple branch-tips stroked my head; and how often I fancied that it returned my intimacy and my love, sensing what I sense and feeling what I feel... And in the shade of this poet olive tree... how many dreams I have dreamed... how many illusions I have imagined..."

Here, here, in the shade of my olive tree

the spirit shatters the fetters of the dust,

and the soul withdraws into a solitude

where silence chokes the idle chatter of mankind.

Here the heart roams through a world

created by my dim, unspoken dreams;

its horizon holds a splendor for my eyes,

and the visions murmur softly in my ears.

A world of heavenly longings

that releases my spirit into the wide open spaces,

weightless — no earth to bend its steps,

no body to break the wing.

Ah! Here there hovers over my seat,

out of