The Setting Twilight

... A long time has passed with her composing verse, and it occurred to her at last to favor her preferred magazine — The Woman's Voice — with a charming collection, which we shall publish in succession. The poetess is Lebanese by origin, and we shall present her — in deference to her wish — under a pen name, until such time as she herself changes her mind...

In the poetry of "Umm Khaldun" there is a touch of authentic native taste, and a practiced hand in the art of wedding words — and who knows what bright future awaits her in the years to come?!!

— The Editors —

Ah, would that my soul could loose its bonds
And be folded with the clouds into their surge
And go whence there is no returning
When the light gathers up its skirts
Be shrouded in its wondrous robe
Be freed of all its weariness

And go away in the departing twilight
And plunge into its blazing train
To the earth in its clamorous living
Be caught up in its pale skirt
And be buried in its setting breast
And drowse upon its melting heart

I imagined myself above the clouds
Coming and going, mooring and floating
Cast upon the cotton of a cloud
The sun's blood a dew that flowed gushing forth
Dissolved in the clouds from white
Seeping in from one side, bearing down
Working deep among the folds of the cloud-banks

And over the oceans in a boat
And I fling myself like one at play
Embroidered like a downy silken mantle
And mingled into the curdled foam
Turned blue, or browned all over
Sprinkling its blood from one side
Like one who screens his eyes with the brow

It is the sun that journeys on, though she
It is magic, what the beholders' eyes look upon
She hid herself and vanished, traveling on to rise
Hers are the two easts, hers the two wests
I wished I might cast myself upon her breast
And spin along her thread in space
And be carried on the wing of the air
To its flood-tide in the folds of the gulf
There is a place where the soul comes to rest
Until it sees her among those ascending
And is she anywhere but in one of the stars
There — there life grows sweet
Life stretches long — and what is in it
O joy for my soul, if it is set free

Is nailed fast in her ashen disk
For she has been dyed with a lying blood
On the other, reproachful side
Hers the rope flung loose upon the withers
And melt into her sinking glow
And be cast upon the drifting flood
To the sea in its angry waves
To its ebb-tide, beating and fleeing
In her contented, willing sleep
To the piercing star of paradise
Set down and away from our wayward star!!
And grow clear of all that is stagnant and tainted
Save the pleasure of eating and drinking
To flee away in the setting twilight