you longed to sing it...

Greater than all you ever did, Mayy, than all the wounds you wiped away among men, is sweat wiped from the brow of a beloved — how you longed to do that, Mayy... and you did not. Your life was lost in the pride of fame. And here we are, you and I, alone... No one is left to you but me, "Mayy." I am your father, and I am your mother, and I am your brother, and I am your husband... We shall live together forever... And when you depart from the earth, none will go with you but me — I, the emptiness... And never again will you write anything great, Mayy... except your life with me...

You fear it, my lord Abdulaziz, as Hashemite; and my lord Faisal fears it as Saudi... and these Christians fear it as Islamic... And this fear will destroy our country utterly. And so we have remained a people without kings, and kings with crowns on their heads and no subjects. — And what shall we do for these Christians, Amin, so that they fear no more? — Widen your breasts, my lord; open your hearts and your houses to these Christians... They live in the memories of a dark and dreadful past: erase that past from their minds, so that nothing remains to them but this shining day on which you open to them the gates of tolerance and kindness — and they will enter. Then they will enter, and their fear will not enter with them; and on that day we shall live for this homeland and for this sky, and in the name of one great God. Christian Europe — godless Europe, which denied Christ and sold His blood and His cross for less than thirty paltry pieces of silver — Europe has no door left to her in the lands of the Arabs but this one, through which she enters upon the fold with her fangs and her claws. So shut it, shut it in her face... shut it with the keys of love and forbearance. Shut the mouths of those who call for an Islamic union, and you shut the door on fanatical, hungry Europe; and you shut the door on the like of those who call, in Lebanon, for a Christian homeland...

The beautiful dawn was drawing its rosy feet across the hills, and in the valleys over the waters and the dry land... as though the world had been born only yesterday... — Where is the road to Paradise??!!

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From above the waters and from beneath them, from the mountains and the valleys, from the leaves of the trees and in the whisper of the breeze... around him and in his hearing... from the