New York (Rihani)

by Ameen Rihani

Are you not the daughter of revolt in the ancient world,
The bridge of oddity in the New World,
And the mother of disorder of both?
Woe to your sons and lovers!

Aren’t you yesterday’s divorcee of the Indians,
Today’s [maker] of the news,
And tomorrow’s carrier of the revolution?
Woe to your sons and lovers!

The reptiles of fields make your cradle;
Minerals and their poisons form your bed;
And mountains of wealth and their beasts shape your throne.
Woe to your sons and lovers!

Your womb of iron reflects your infertility;
Woodworms invade your wooden breast;
Your rusting mouth is made of brass;
And the beauty of your marble forehead lingers in its stillness.
Woe to your sons and lovers!

You quaff liquid of pure gold;
You eat the blend of silver;
You wear the wings of science;
And you ornament yourself
With the best of silk and rare jewels,
As your heart of tar burns.
Woe to your sons and lovers!

You are the daughter of lights and colors;
You wear blond hair during the night;
You wear black hair during the day;
And you dye it to suit each caller,
And wash it away for the dubious.
Woe to your sons and lovers!

You are the daughter of morning whisper,
That has not the melodies and songs of dawn;
Rather, it fills with the ringing of solid gold
That is in your nightclubs and markets,
And in your banks and churches.
Woe to your sons and lovers!

You are the daughter of wealth and monopoly;
In your stores, heaped is the wealth of the earth;
In your safes, kept are moneys and jewels;
In your palaces, are culture’s wonders.
But your streets are filled with appalling clamor and noise,
And your huts are filled with darkness, poverty, hunger, and pain.
Woe to your sons and lovers!

The cords of your heart carry the news of Love and Deception;
In your veins flows the toil of Trade and Greed;
Your nerves vibrate with sinful joys;
And in your adversities lie the passions of blind lovers.
Woe to your sons and lovers!

For God! How free and clamorous you are!
You are like a vigorous merchant,
The virgin of madness,
And the whore of arts.
Know that in your debauchery and piety
Lies sinful power.
Woe to your sons and lovers!

Daughter of the minerals and electric power,
Goddess of work and lay,
Boast not for your beauty is earthly and not divine.
Your beauty, like a reflection on glass;
It vanishes as soon as the glass breaks;
Your beauty shows in your palaces and pleasures
And not in your privacy and charity.

Your beauty fills the space with light
And the souls with darkness;
Your are a deep—rooted plant
But with large leaves and sick flowers.

You are an electric river,
Whose banks are but mountains of marble
And forests of iron.

Your night is glamorous
With stars made of man‘s power-plants
And not of the immortal hand of God.
Doleful is such a beauty!
Your time begins with delight and ends with yawn;
Your overall beauty reflects the playhouse of desires and greed;
And your special beauty reflects the latest deceitful and flattering
Mottoes brought forth by civilization.

Your enormity is impregnated with trade,
Which tradesmen perceive as glorious and luxurious.
What a lie? What a blasphemy?
The beauty of their idol is like the Dollar,
Which is minted during the night
And painted during the day.
Alas such a beauty!
  
Does your beauty flourish in your strong arms
And dwindle in your speech and heart,
Which in your foolishness may cease or flourish,
And in your spontaneity, may die?
Does the blue brightness of indolence glitter in your eyes?
Does the torch of poetry and art fade in your heart?

Bride of the New World!
Whose bride would you want to be today or tomorrow?
Would you want move from
Purity to the hiding places,
From the huts of liberty,
To the abodes of vice
In the monuments of fortune
And in the pits of revolution, woe, and death?
May God's mercy be on the souls
Which knew you when you were chaste.
Woe to those souls which adored you as their whore.

New Yorkalem is today envied by Jerusalem;
The [old people] enjoy themselves;
They do not moan.
Woe to the New Yorkalem!

Aren’t the voices of your true sons overwhelmed,
By the voice of [the old land], which
Echo on your stages and podiums
And in your media, as in your trade?
Aren’t the night markets and clubs of Tamar
Filled with prostitution and vice?
Does Yaeel hold the pen today,
As the sword it held in the olden days?
There exists a great difference between one enemy and another,
Between the falsehood, the Sisra of yesterday
And the truthful, the Sisra of today.

Daughter of the [ancient people]
Where are your ancestors’ virtues?
Your past is filled with fire and light;
Your present is a dilapidated light;
And your future?
The borrowed light will sure diffuse one day,
And your true image would show.

Your virtue,
God embodied in your towers under His skies.
Towers molded in gold-ore,
Plunged in perfume,
And crowned with golden domes.
Your domes are the dung of the earth,
And the souls under them are the dung of life.