A Gentle Rain

He put it well who said: 'The spring of Damascus and the autumn of Beirut.' For Damascus in springtime — where is Paradise beside her! Sprawling gardens surging with color: in their courts the birds sing at the top of their throats, and blossom and flower breathe their fragrance through every corner...

And Beirut in autumn is a young girl glorying in her confident youth... What most captivates you in her is this quiet, expectant beauty. As if autumn nature, with us, were forever dreaming, and its dream haunted by a longing for a far-off beloved whose distance it can no longer bear with patience!..

And our sea in autumn — oh, its loveliness! What a blue veil plays coquettishly upon its face! What a refreshing breeze meets you from its flanks, so that you forget, in an instant, that here the heat once scorched you, your strength gave way, and the sweat streamed from your brow!

Beirut's autumn is, beyond doubt, a blessing to its people — provided it does not lengthen and stretch beyond all bounds, till the eyes of the farmers turn about in dread, and our mother the earth sleeps hungry beside her withered crops!

We have praised You, O Lord! You have granted us delight of the eye wherever the eye may light; grant it to us now as a bountiful rain, to quench in the heart of the earth her long-stored yearning, O Reliever of hardship and Giver of blessings! Burst the heavens open with water, that the seeds may stir in the bowels of the soil, that its veins may breathe forth every lovely leafing thing, and that every living creature and every lifeless thing may sway, a smile of thanks upon its lips!