This one is used by the women of all the sects, but in all of the songs the name is changed to suit the name of the baby to whom the mother is singing,
Ali, your eyes are sleeping,
But God's eyes never sleep:
Their hours of lonely weeping
None can forever keep.
How sweet is the night of health,
When Ali sleeps in peace!
Oh may such nights continue,
Nor ever, ever cease!
Among all the scores of nursery songs, I have heard only a very few addressed to girls, but some of these are beautiful. Hear Katrina sing this one:
Lûlû dear the house is bright,
With your forehead's sunny light;
Men your father honor now
When they see your lovely brow.
If father comes home sad and weary,
Sight of you will make him cheery.
The "fuller's soap" mentioned in Malachi 3:2, is the plant called in Arabic "Ashnan or Shenan," and the Arabs sometimes use it in the place of soap. The following is another song addressed to a baby girl:
Come Cameleer, as quick as you can,
And make us soap from the green "Shenan,"
To bathe our Lûlû dear;
We'll wash her and dress her,
And then we'll caress her,
She'll sleep in her little sereer. (cradle)
This song is sung by the Druze women to their baby girls:
Your eye is jet black, and dark are its lashes,
Between the arched brows, like a crescent it flashes;
When painted with "kohl" 'tis brighter by far,
Than the full-orbed moon or the morning star.
The following is supposed to be addressed by a Druze woman to her neighbor who has a daughter of marriageable age, when she is obliged to veil her face: