The Phoenix Bird

Don't you know him? He sang the Marseillaise to you, and you kissed the feather that fell from his wing; he came in the glory of paradise, and perhaps you turned away from him toward the sparrow that sat with gold tinsel on its wings.

The bird of paradise-renewed each century-born in flame, dying in flame! Your portrait in a frame of gold hangs in the halls of the rich, but you yourself often fly around lonely and misunderstood-a myth only: "The phoenix bird of Arabia."

When you were born in the garden of paradise, in its first rose, beneath the tree of knowledge, our Lord kissed you and gave you your true name-poetry!