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Gone with the Swallows

1876 –

1940

Must I convey at last the news to thee?
Must I now mourn the love that lived in me?
   Gone with the autumn, with the dying year.
   Gone with the kisses that are yet so near!
Gone with the swallows somewhere o’er the sea!
But with the Spring will he again
Return, will he with me remain?
       Must I till then, remembering naught,
       Forgetting all that love had brought,
   Grope in the shadows of the slain?
           Must I forget the day
           That took my love away,
               And all the happy hours
               That reared for him their towers
               And crowned him with the flowers
           Of all the queens of May?
           Must I alone
           My once my own,
              In my retreat
              The new year greet,
              And winter meet,
           And winds hear moan?
                Not yet
                   Can I
                Forget;
                   But why
                       One clings
                       And sings
                       To things
                   That die?

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on April 9, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Ameen Fares Rihani, who is regarded as a founder of Arab American literature and a major figure in the Mahjar movement, was born in Freike, Lebanon, then part of the Ottoman Empire, on November 24, 1876. Rihani was one of six children and the eldest son born to a Lebanese Christian (Maronite) silk manufacturer. Rihani moved to New York City with one of his brothers in 1888 and began to learn English. Three years later, Rihani became an American citizen.

Occasion

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About this Poem

“Gone with the Swallows” appeared in Myrtle and Myrrh (The Gorham Press, 1905).

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Lebanus

^{To B.C.R}

O my Love, how long wilt thou continue
Fondly nursing every dreaming Hour!
Our Lebanus, O my Love, is calling,
Yea, and waiting in his ancient Tower.

Ameen Rihani

1921

The Wanderer

I wander among the hills of alien lands
Where Nature her prerogative resigns
To Man; where Comfort in her shack reclines
And all the arts and sciences commands.
But in my soul
The eastern billows roll—
I hear the voices of my native strands.

Ameen Rihani

1921

After Reading King Lear

Is ’t strange that in the cycle of his woes,
Which shakes his cloud-embosomed peak of years
And shatters the very fountain of his tears,
He seeks the friendly path of winds and snows?
When Villainy forgiven more villainous grows,
And Treason in his robes herself attires,
And Love beneath Adultery’s sheet expires,

Ameen Rihani

1921

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Gone with the Swallows

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