Mr. Georges Lian is a scholar and researcher in language and the sciences. The Lebanese and Syrian community sent him to present a bronze statue of Ameen Rihani, which now stands in the place of honor in his museum, built at Freike.

During his stay in his mother country, Mr. Lian was a lecturer in Portuguese language and literature at the Syrian University. He has translated into Arabic these two poems by the Brazilian poet Castro Alves, and we print them for him in The Woman's Voice magazine with our sincere thanks to him and our appreciation of this delightful strain of modern Brazilian literature.

God!

I remember! I remember when I used to play on the shore,

while the sea roared, and its waves rose and towered like mountains, carrying with them

the white foam that butted against the sky!

I said to my mother at that moment: What harsh music is

this of the fearsome tempests?

Is there anything greater than the ocean, or anything

stronger than the winds?

My mother smiled, looked up to the sky, and answered: A being we fear,

my son, and do not see—He is greater than the sea and stronger than the tempests

—He is God!!

•

The Genius

Though he roamed the earth over and over, people would keep away from him; and though he lived a lifetime

poor and destitute, his innards hollow beside the rich land

and the flowing river,

He has no shelter to take refuge in, in God's wide earth;

He finds tenderness from no one, not even in the forests;

And if he seeks a friend, he does not find one; and if he stands up to speak, he

wins nothing but applause.

He walks laboring over rough ground, rising by his stands from victory

to victory; his glory is his strength and his provision.

And if it is said: this is an immortal genius who does not die, he answers:

Have I ever lived, that I should fear to die and not live forever!