New York (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.