Two Poems: "In the Earth" and "On the Road"

"In the Earth" and "On the Road" are two breaths of pure patriotic poetry — two pulsing pictures of the struggle now raging between the ranks of free, unfettered youth and the elements of reaction. The two poems are from the collection of the Syrian poet Nazir Azmah: "Lay Waste... Even to the Moon!"

"In the Earth"

I die, and my people remain —
beauty and goodness and truth;
and should the earth enfold me,
then above the earth
I shall shine forth as life and creation!!
And my farm — what a wondrous dream?

It swayed between my ribs;
my arms here rose up, an oak,
and my eye laughed, a daisy,
and my soul flutters, a breeze,
and a beautiful, bountiful field,
and a house that reaches the stars!

And my heart — do you hear my heart?
An anthem of tenderness and love
over every field and road.
I am, in the earth,
mines of goodness and fertility
and the surge of youth!!

"On the Road"

And I walked, a builder, on the road;
I believed in truth... and goodness and love,
and I drank my faith from the people,
and planted in its sons my love.
What have I done, that they should raze my breast

and break my heart
and gouge my back
and burn my lashes?
I love the people in my dawn;
no, never shall the people die in my heart.

So let them crush my heart —
who tomorrow can wrench me from the soil,
from within the blossom and the wellspring and love?!!
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