Tammuz in the Caravan of Literature

.. And this is a new slap from the slaps of fate... under which literature reels and a whole generation is shaken — a generation that looked to you with the eye of hope, O "Tammuz"...

It is a premeditated plot to smother that blazing ember which lit the path of thousands, between pupil and companion — oh, the deep breach you have left behind you!

The pains baptized you, yet they could not prevail against you; in spite of them you stood firm in the face of that headstrong storm, defying it with a heart to which fear never found its way.

You used to rise upon us with a good morning... I would take up the newspaper al-Nahar every day, that my eyes might settle on a masterpiece of yours occupying its lower corner.

And I would ask about Tammuz, only to be told: he is Fouad Suleiman. Then fate led me on, and I met you at the newspaper al-Nahar, and a friend of us both was the means of acquaintance between us.

And I went out firmer in my faith in you, O "Tammuz," and my admiration grew...

You lagged behind, O "Tammuz," the procession of the caravan — of which you are not the first, and will not be the last — only to overtake it today.

That caravan at whose head Gibran walked... Gibran, who rose up in a surge of proud defiance, flinging sickness against the wall.

And so we had a literature, and we had the honor of liberation.

That caravan behind whose funeral a generation walked...

It began with Gibran... and it will not end with Tammuz!..