To You..! (From the Whispered Literature)

At the beginning of last September Miss Fahima Hakim received the Master's degree in education and psychology from the American University of Beirut. The subject of her thesis was "The Relation between Home and School in Syria." The Woman's Voice, in congratulating Miss Hakim on her high degree, is pleased to publish this piece of hers from the whispered literature...

To a crying hope..
that hearts have cradled..
and pains have labored to bring forth..!
To you..!

You have lived in all my hopes..
and smiled in my deepest pains..
When I see you..!
secrets flood over me..
and a pride envelops me..!
Your rebellious spirit..
hovers about me always..
bursting forth in everything..
overwhelming everything..!

★

Everyone knows how much you love your land..
Is it for this that they call you a rebel..!
Away with them..
what, then, will they call me..
who have drowned in admiration of you..!!!

★

Those who flee from the light..
and crawl in the darkness..
they are cowards in their greed and their gluttony..
their envy and their spite..!
Pierce through to them..
stand among their scowling hearts..
let your rebellious, leaping spirit..
blaze out in strength..
and blind their eyes grown used to darkness..
for the more you burn, the brighter you shine..!

★

Tomorrow they may ask me about you, and I shall answer..
he is a spirit in revolt against enslavement..
and a heart hungering for freedom..!
I feel him as a cry in my depths..
and a revolution in my being..!
He never learned to despise the soil..
and never knew the chase after gold..!
And when they ask where you are..
then..
I feel my feelings cry out..
he is in the black of my eye..
he is in my blood..
he is in my spirit..!