The Golden Ring
Dr. Badi' Haqqi
... from the diwan “Enchantment,” soon to appear, by Dr. Badi' Haqqi.
“Set me as a ring upon your heart, as a ring upon your arm, for love is strong as death.”
The Song of Songs
You see it found the path yielding, and went its way,
leaned upon a finger, then circled round;
it climbed a branch, tender and dewy —
you see it savored the luscious fruit;
five candles ranged themselves about it,
and it was for them the flame and the spark.
And it roamed across the delicate silver,
a crescent pillowed on the waves of the seas;
on the ladder of melody it slept and drowsed,
and let flow a dream steeped deep in fire;
and it strayed proudly on the ambergris litter
and drank of the perfume the breath of the arar;
from it a guileless ray runs riot,
and about it a phantom of yellow glows.
Free, coquettish, it leans and lavishes
on its tender young bough the bounty of gold;
then it slips, docile to the rein, little by little,
and sinks down in humbleness and brokenness;
and if the memory of some delicious wedding stirs it,
it tosses, plaintive, and leaps and surges.
From the publishing house of the magazine al-Adib
Before the Irzal

The Heart's Talk

... The heart turned to look, the moment the road brought us out in view of the irzal; and behold, what I had supposed had become a crumbling ruin stands like the everlasting pyramid in its stubborn steadfastness and its mockery of time...

I took in “the overlook” with one quick glance — everything remains as it was... As if the whole stretch of pines were inhabited by the Teacher's spirit...

*

From the balcony of the irzal his singular head looks out at me — with the radiant laugh, with the fiery eyes, and the knotted brows even in hours of cheer and gladness!! There I surprised him one mid-morning, his back propped against a pine, teasing with his lips a sun-browned cluster of grapes until he had finished it off...

In the valley behind that slope, his Russian and German singing had, every morning, the echo of a full choir...

On this spot, how often he sat upon the ground in circles of his students or his inquiring visitors, the hours stretching on with them, hour after hour...

Here the peasants and the people of the neighborhood knew him as a genial, friendly, playful companion, trading jest for jest, so as to take hold of the reins of their trust, and to create out of their simplicities heroisms and manhoods beyond assault...

*

How wonderful they are, these pictures... coming back to my mind alive and leaping... while I stand there in my deep meditations, my eye nailed to the irzal... What place will it hold in history?!

Aphrodite
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