A Greeting to the Delegations of the Arab Women's Unions

Delivered on March 8, 1952, at the party given by the wife of His Excellency Mr. Nuri al-Said, Prime Minister of Iraq, in honor of the delegations, at the swimming club of the capital.

Are these the glad tidings of the joyous feast, resplendent, / or are those the flowers of spring in their bloom?
Or a festival of light, bewitching in its radiance, / that has flooded the homeland, brilliant and luminous?
Or the procession of history, advancing laden / with memories, bringing glad tidings and remembrance?
It quickened hearts that lay stagnant, and they raced, / and it called upon speech, free, to find expression
And it cleared the eyes, their light redoubled, / and they gazed, vying in pride with the epochs of time

*

What is in you, O Baghdad? The hills have blossomed / on your cheeks, and your verdure gleams green
What is in you, O Baghdad — what glad tidings do we see? / And why have you put on the most sumptuous dress?
What is in you, O Baghdad? You strut in pride above the world, / become the freshest of all things fresh
Are these the riders of Harun al-Rashid appearing, / so that Iraq breaks forth in cheers and cries of glory?
Or is that al-Mu'tasim of the caliphate coming / from Samarra — or the processions of Caesar?!

*

No — that is their procession, come heralding / the ideal renaissance; and it came in triumph
They carried from Lebanon the finest greeting, / and carried from Barada perfumed peace
And they carried from the Jerusalem of Arabism an anguish, / and carried from Amman a still greater longing
And from Egypt they carried longing, from / the Nile of that land to our two rivers, more abundant still
How noble they are, now that they have come — and how welcome / an arrival that has filled hearts and left its mark
They have renewed the bond of Arabism among us / and raised its glorious banner on the summits
And they have carried the torch of a women's renaissance, / noble in its origins and goodly in its substance
The freedom of both sexes is among its aims — / and every human being aspires to be free
They are the weapon where slackness has gone astray; / when they work, they create an enlightened people
They are the weapon when the powers are locked in struggle; / they are serenity when concord is troubled
They are motherhood and tenderness; it is they / who bestow beauty upon life, that it may flower

*

So carry from Baghdad the finest greeting, / and from Iraq carry a still greater longing
For yours is love in every heart, / and yours in every soul a remembrance that has left its trace
In you Arabism flourishes, tender and fresh, / and through you it boasts, in these lands, over all mankind
And I ask God to fulfill all that / you seek — O you who have raised an edifice on the heights