GeorgeNicolasEl-Hage.com
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  • Professional Profile
    • Who is George Nicolas El-Hage
  • Publications
    • "Aqlam Muhajirah" The voice of the New Pen League (NPL)
    • Literary Criticism >
      • Books (English) >
        • A Labor of Love: Our Lebanon Family Home Renovation Project
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
        • Eliya Abu Madi: The Distinguished Poet of al-Rabita al-Qalamiya
        • A Brief History of Arabic Literature: Volume One: Pre-Islamic to the Abbaasid Age
        • A Brief History of Arabic Literature: Volume Two: Andalusia to the Modern Age
        • William Blake and Kahlil Gibran: Poets of Prophetic Vision
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran: The Man Versus the Legend
        • Essays on Literature and Language
        • Ibn al-Farid's "Khamriyya" ("Ode on Wine")
        • Nizar Qabbani: Journal of a City Named Beirut
        • Nizar Qabbani: Women in My Poetry and in My Life
        • Nizar Qabbani: My Story with Poetry - "An Autobiography"
        • Nizar Qabbani: Journal of An Indifferent Woman
        • Ghada al-Samman's Beirut '75: An Autobiographical Interpretation
        • English Translation of Selected Letters of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab
        • Khalil Hawi: Letters of Love and Life
        • The Philosoper of Freike, Author of the Greater City
        • Immortal Quotes from Ameen al-Rihani’s Masterpiece The Book of Khalid
        • Ameen al-Rihani: Eastern and Western Figures
        • Ameen al-Rihani’s The Register of Repentance: Four Short Stories and a Play
        • Selected Letters of Ameen al-Rihani: Translated with an Introduction and Notes
        • Ameen al-Rihani: You...The Poets
        • Ameen al-Rihani: My Story with May
        • Ameen al-Rihani: The Muleteer and the Priest
      • Books (Arabic) >
        • al-Zajal al-Lubnani wa Zaghloul al-Damour fi Beit Meri: (Lebanese Zajal and Zaghloul al-Damour in Beit Meri)
        • Madkhal ila-l-'alam al-shi 'ri 'inda Khalil Hawi usluban wa madmunan: (An Introduction to the Poetic Universe of Khalil Hawi)
        • al-Nabi bayna 'adu al-Masih wa al-Insan al-Ilah
        • Sahifat "al-Risala" al-Lubnaniya al-Mahjariya: (The "al-Risala" Newspaper and the Lebanese Press in Diaspora)
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran wa William Blake: Sha'ira al-Ru'ya: (Gibran Kahlil Gibran and William Blake: Poets of Prophetic Vision)
        • The Trilogy of Heroism, Redemption, and Triumph: The Press in Diaspora, Khalil Hawi, Zaghloul al-Damour
    • Textbooks & Articles on Teaching & Learning Arabic >
      • marHaba III: A Course in Levantine & Modern Standard Arabic (LMSA) >
        • Qasidat Najwa
        • marHaba III: PART ONE Audio Files
        • marHaba III: PART TWO Audio Files
        • marHaba III: PART FOUR Audio Files
      • marHaba II: A Course in Levantine Arabic - Lebanese Dialect - Intermediate Level >
        • A Companion Book to marHaba II: English Translation & Transliteration of All Lessons in marHaba II
      • marHaba: A Course in Levantine Arabic - Lebanese Dialect >
        • marHaba: Practice Workbooks
      • MABROUK: A Course in Modern Standard Arabic (Elementary & Intermediate Levels) >
        • Study Guide: MABROUK
      • The Story of Sami and Warda
      • Reviews on Qasidat Khataya
    • Lebanese Nursery Rhymes
    • Books (Poetry in English/Arabic) >
      • Love Surpassed: A Book of Poetry
      • Letters to My Son: An Immigrant's Saga
      • Lebanese Hymns of Love and War
    • Books (Poetry in Arabic) >
      • Love Poems from Beirut
      • Awdat al-Faris wa Qiyamat al-Madina
      • al-Ghurba wa Mawasim al-Dhalam
      • Law Kunti Li
      • Qasa’id Bila Tarikh (Undated Poems) >
        • Mikhail Naimy: Fathers and Sons - A Play in Four Acts
      • Maw’id wa-liqa’
      • anti wal atfaalu fi Beirut: You and the Children in Beirut
      • You and the Children in Beirut
    • Poems (English) >
      • To Mary Ann with Love: A Book of Poetry
      • Birth of a Princess
      • Forty Years of Bliss
      • Thinking of You
      • You are My Christmas
      • A Poem for Mother's Day
      • To Mary Ann on Her Birthday
    • Poems (Arabic) >
      • Arabic Poems in MSA >
        • Beirut Speaks - song
        • A Tribute to Beirut
        • Lubnaniyat
        • The Garden of Visions
        • Qasidat Najwa >
          • Reviews on Qasidat Najwa
        • Kunna ibtada’na
      • Arabic Poems in Lebanese Dialect >
        • Qasidat Khataya >
          • Reviews on Qasidat Khataya
        • Qasidat Damaar >
          • Reviews on Qasidat Damaar
        • Hilwit libnan
        • Qasidat Ya Bayi' al-ward >
          • Reviews on Qasidat Ya Bayi' al-ward
        • Qasidat Ayloul >
          • Reviews on Qasidat Ayloul
    • My Translations of Other Poets'/Writers' Works >
      • My Poetry (Translated from Arabic to English) >
        • Beirut Speaks
        • The Book of Death, #28
        • Journey of Illusion
        • Letter to a Country With No Frontier
        • A Letter to the Children of Qana
        • My People
        • You, Beirut and the Children
        • Introduction to If You Were Mine
        • Sufiya: A Mystical Poem
        • Surprise Attack
        • Exile
        • Chariot of Light
      • Karam al-Bustani: Eastern Myths
      • May Ziyadeh: The Return of the Wave
      • Said Akl: When Lebanon Speaks
      • Ameen Albert Rihani: A Train and No Station
      • Mikhail Naimy: Job: A Play in Four Acts
      • Mikhail Naimy: Once Upon A Time
      • Mikhail Naimy: Abu Batta and Other Stories
      • Mikhail Naimy: Fathers and Sons - A Play in Four Acts
      • Mikhail Naimy: Inspired by Christ
      • Mikhail Naimy: Sab‘un (Seventy) An Autobiography
      • Mikhail Naimy: al-Ghirbal (The Sieve): Selections Translated into English with an Introduction
      • Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad: “The Qareen” and Other Stories
      • Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad: The Wool Shirt and Other Stories
      • Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad: A Loaf of Bread (al-Raghif)
      • Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad: The Lame Boy and Other Stories
      • Maroun Abboud: Faces and Stories
      • Maroun Abboud: The Red Prince - A Lebanese Tale
      • Maroun Abboud: Tales from the Village
      • al-Rihaniyyat
      • Munajayat Al-Sab‘in
      • Mahmud Darwish’s poem, “Antithesis”
      • ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati’s: The Byzantine Poems of Abu Firas
      • Gibran’s Unpublished Letters to Archbishop Antonious Bashir
    • Personal Reflections >
      • First Impressions of Lebanon in June 2013
      • The Collapse of a Tradition
  • Professional Activities
    • Lectures
    • Poetry Readings
    • Interviews
    • Conferences
    • Memberships/Committees
    • Management Enrichment
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Contact Information

"Birth of a Princess"
August 8, 2021
To: Mary Ann
From: George Nicolas El-Hage

A long time ago
 When the gods still lived among humans
 On this beautiful globe,
 When the sun, the moon, and the planets
 Still maintained
 Their human forms and characteristics,
 When rivers flowed with milk and honey,
When the lion and the lamb walked together,
 And the Tree of Knowledge was available to all
 Because the serpent was chained and dormant
 In the abyss of karma,
 When heroes and enchantresses
 Roamed this vast earth
 Creating civilizations and forming families,
It was during that blessed time
And on a special and foretold night,
That a princess was born in the ancient land of Phoenicia,
 In the Sacred Valley of Qadisha,
 A stone’s throw from the Valley of the Saints
 And from the Holy Forest of the Cedars,
 A day’s travel from the peak of lofty Sannine,
 And another day’s travel from the sacred river of al-Kalb.   
This was a long time ago,
Long before Adonis graced the valley with his sacred feet,
 And Astarte perfumed her hallowed body
 With the scent of pine
 And the fragrance from wildflowers and myrrh,
Before Apollo drove the chariot of the sun
 Across the horizon,
 And long before Hannoun sailed
 To discover Amerika
 And Cadmus chased Jupiter,
 The god of gods
Who metamorphosed himself as a white bull
And lured the young Phoenician maiden
To ride his back
 Cadmus sailed to recover his sister Europa
 And eventually bestow her name
 On an entire continent
 After he populated it
With mighty men
A new race of creatures
Sprung from the dragon’s talons
This was also before Hannibal the Great
 Crossed the forbidden Alps,
 And the uncommon red dye
Known as “Orjouane”
 Was discovered on the shores of Tyre,
 And even before Gilgamesh
 Made his way to do battle
 In the Holy Forest of the Cedars
 And then dive into the sacred river
 To retrieve the flower of immortality,
Long before all this came to pass
And in a special cycle of rebirth and re-creation
On the Eighth Day of the holy month
 Named after the Great Augustus Caesar,
That a Princess was born in the ancient land of Phoenicia
 To unknown parents
 But in a miraculous way
 She was delivered from the womb
 Of a unique Lotus flower
 And readily given to her old grandmother
 To raise and protect her
 And to educate her with ancient wisdom
And books of learning and knowledge
 Orally transmitted
 But never written in words
 The Princess was endowed
 With graciousness and insight,
With uncommon intelligence,
 And deep and penetrating foresight
 Into the heart of life and spiritual realities
She knew things beyond her age
 And was chosen by divine will
 To be betrothed
 During her seventh reincarnation
 To a man from across the oceans,
From the land of her birth
 Where the Alphabet was invented
 And the first ship sailed the open seas.
That would be the time
 When she was to be reborn and to live
 In the farmland near the island of Ithaca
 From where Odysseus sailed to Troy
 And devised the Trojan horse
 That brought down the demise of King Priam
 And his magnificent reign.
 The sailor whom she was destined to marry
 Would someday sail from the shores of Byblos,
And he was to cross foreign lands
 And fight many dragons and beasts
In order to secure her hand in a marriage
 That would be blessed
 Not by all the people in the kingdom
 But only by those who are good and virtuous.
Today, this princess
 Has reached a milestone in her life’s journey,
Sixty-five cycles
 The moon has crossed the sky
 Sixty-five times the seasons changed,
 And sixty-five times the earth
 Has turned around the sun
However, this precious and loved princess
 Has not aged one single day
 Because she is made of love and love is ageless,
She is made of fragrance,
 And her scent is everlasting.
 She is made of faith
 And faith is eternal.
 She is made of light
 And light is changeless,
 And she is made of beauty
 And beauty is timeless.
Today this princess lives on a beautiful peninsula
 In a peaceful castle on a Rise in a Green Wood spot
 With her lover who adores her
 And they both wait for the right time
 To return to their sacred home
 Built of enduring stones
 On a hill in the land of Metn
 In the heart of Mount Lebanon
 Overlooking the Mediterranean
 Where the story of Genesis began…
 






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