NOW the bright morning-star, Day’s harbinger, Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire Mirth, and youth, and warm desire! Woods and groves are of thy dressing;...
Beauty and ugliness have one origin. Name beauty, and ugliness is. Recognizing virtue recognizes evil. Is and is not produce one another. The difficult is born in the easy, long is defined by short, the high by the low. Instrument and voice achieve one harmony. Before and after have places....
My longing comes to my lips as supplication of mine O ALLAH! May like the candle be the life of mine! May the world’s darkness disappear through the life of mine! May every place light up with the sparkling light of mine! May my homeland through me attain elegance As...
He left me, and himself he departed; What fault was there in me? Neither at night nor in the day do I sleep in peace; My eyes pour out tears! Sharper than swords and spears are the arrows of love! There is no one as cruel as love; This malady...
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not...
Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended. The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those...
How could I ever thank my Friend? No thanks could ever begin to be worthy. Every hair of my body is a gift from Him; How could I thank Him for each hair? Praise that lavish Lord forever Who from nothing conjures all living beings! Who could ever describe His...
How could I ever thank my Friend? No thanks could ever begin to be worthy. Every hair of my body is a gift from Him; How could I thank Him for each hair? Praise that lavish Lord forever Who from nothing conjures all living beings! Who could ever describe His...
My friend has fled! alas, my friend has fled, And left me nought but tears and pain behind! Like smoke above a flame caught by the wind, So rose she from my breast and forth she sped. Drunk with desire, I seized Love’s cup divine, But she that held it...
It is autumn; not without, But within me is the cold. Youth and spring are all about; It is I that have grown old. Birds are darting through the air, Singing, building without rest; Life is stirring everywhere, Save within my lonely breast. There is silence: the dead leaves Fall...
WHERE are the tidings of union? that I may arise– Forth from the dust I will rise up to welcome thee! My soul, like a homing bird, yearning for Paradise, Shall arise and soar, from the snares of the world set free. When the voice of thy love shall call...
TWO ladies to the summit of my mind Have clomb, to hold an argument of love. The one has wisdom with her from above, For every noblest virtue well designed: The other, beauty’s tempting power refined And the high charm of perfect grace approve: And I, as my sweet Master’s...
My peace, O my brothers and sisters, is my solitude, And my Beloved is with me always, For His love I can find no substitute, And His love is the test for me among mortal beings, Whenever His Beauty I may contemplate, He is my “mihrab”, towards Him is my...
He Is Calm, and I Am Too He is calm, And I am too. He drinks lemon tea, And I drink coffee. (this is the only thing different about us) He, like me, wears a loose striped shirt, And I stare, like him, in a monthly magazine. He does not...
Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was the national Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output. In his work, Palestine became a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile. The poet Naomi Shihab...
_Once_ it smiled a silent dell Where the people did not dwell; They had gone unto the wars, Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, Nightly, from their azure towers, To keep watch above the flowers, In the midst of which all day The red sun-light lazily lay, _Now_ each visitor shall...
I sail to you in the ocean of my dreams To a far away distant place Of great beauty and tranquility Where pain and suffering do not exist, Where we give praise for our joy and happiness, Where our love intertwines with a love for all things O beloved keeper...
Sweet dreams form a shade, O’er my lovely infants head. Sweet dreams of pleasant streams, By happy silent moony beams Sweet sleep with soft down. Weave thy brows an infant crown. Sweet sleep Angel mild, Hover o’er my happy child. Sweet smiles in the night, Hover over my delight. Sweet...
Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence: This place made from our love for that emptiness! Yet somehow comes emptiness, this existence goes. Praise to that happening, over and over! For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness. Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,...
It was passed from one bird to another, the whole gift of the day. The day went from flute to flute, went dressed in vegetation, in flights which opened a tunnel through the wind would pass to where birds were breaking open the dense blue air – and there, night...
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