Lebanon

A new poem by the poet Omar Abu Risha, Syria's Minister Plenipotentiary in Argentina, which he recited at the Lebanese House during a party held in his honor.

You — what are you? An everlasting enchantment;
from its inspiration we beg what we beg.
We commune with you, and in our melodies
one longing ends and another begins.
In every gathering we hold our evening talk,
bent over wishes gone astray.
You echoed whatever spread abroad from us,
and on your hilltops anthems of glory swayed.
So receive us, O temple of communion —
we are but the candles of the temple!!

★

How often we lined the eye of glory
with the kohl-stick you fashioned in the dawn of splendor,
the day you ringed the palaces with one hand
and gathered in their harvest with the other!
A foot that wounds the bowels of the earth,
and a mouth that kisses the cheek of the star;
and at your sides walked young men,
behind them the long caravan of time.
They dipped the oar into the sea, and on
every horizon foam was churned;
they bore the letter at whose virgin kiss
the lips of eternity parted —
and looked, and glimpsed nothing but
a nation giving guidance, and a world guided.