...Splendid literary selections from the book "Darb al-Qamar" (The Moon's Path), the first book of the late man of letters, Fouad Suleiman, published simultaneously with this issue by "Dar al-Ahad."

...Our roads in the mountain

are tales...

One belongs to the proud water jar, in the elegance of its carrying — it comes down to earth, or it does not.

And to the red cheeks, the color of luscious apples, if you will, or like the colors of sunrise, when the light steals through from behind our high mountains.

And one belongs to song and the herdsman's chant, in the dusk of the sun's going down, along which our young men come home, slow steps, to warmth and well-being.

And one belongs to the clusters, in the vineyards.

And one belongs to the moon... as though the moon rose nowhere but there...

It was the tale of tales in the village...

And it was love's...

I wonder...? Is it still love's?

Or has love died in the roads of our village, the village on the white hill?!

And is it still the moon's, I wonder? Or has the moon turned his road away from it?...

It was a bed of roses... and a rope of silk going and coming, never broken save when the ropes of night are broken.

No — it was a lock of the moon's hair, tied down to the earth with eyelashes.

And Delilah triumphed over the human weakness in woman, and so became an example beyond all example of the woman who breaks the lust in her own body for the sake of her homeland and her people!!

It is a great victory that Delilah wins for woman in every age: she stands before that overwhelming beauty in Samson's body, before that immortal divine splendor which no man's body on earth has ever known — and she stands tall, victorious, magnificent.

Here is a human being, a man, the most magnificent that men can be: a body like the roots of the ancient oak, in the beauty of the gods; a dream out of the dreams of the jungles; in his arms the finest that ever was in the arms of any man the earth has known; in his eyes, paradises no eye has dreamed of; on his lips, brooks of crumbled musk...

How wondrous are these black locks of his hair, falling over his brow like a forest of perfumes! How splendid his lashes!

And this same man, this good mountain, is a fearful enemy, who humbles the dignity of the homeland, defiles its women and its virgins, burns the crops, and tramples the grapes of the vineyards...

And the citizen in Delilah triumphs over Delilah the female: she takes the bull by the horns and shears with her own hand those wondrous locks — and she was not ashamed of her deed, nor did conscience reproach her.

...As I remember, Mother, we had in the garden an almond tree... The sparrows used to take shelter in it, in heat and in cold.

And it bore my name and my brothers' names... we carved our names into its ribs. So where is it, Mother?...

— It grew very old, my darling, and the storm broke it...

Your father planted it before the sea took him. He said:

Eat of it in my name, and remember me...

— And it will never blossom again, Mother, in the garden of our house, the way it used to. And the sparrows of the beloved house will never shelter in it again? Where do those sparrows go, Mother... in the days of heat and cold... now that the beloved almond