poetry · Issue No. 1, January 1950 · p. 22

Beautiful Poetry

Bishara al-Khoury

الشعر الجميل · بشارة الخوري

Youth and beauty are the realm of your hands —
what crown is more precious than your two crowns?

Beauty set up its throne, and we asked
who was meant for it — and we were pointed to you.

So pour your tender soul upon it,
as the sky pours itself into your eyes.

Whenever youth contends with a beauty
of wondrous radiance, it traces it back to you.

The nightingale sings only to cast
the sighs of passion into your ears.

The rose killed itself out of envy of you
and threw its blood upon your cheeks.

And the butterflies wearied of the flowers
when the breezes told them of your lips.

They raised of you an ideal for beauty,
and bowed down in reverence at your feet.

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