One like you was never born,
One like you was never brought;
All the Arabs might grow old,
Fighting ne'er so brave and bold,
Yet with all their battles fought
One like you they never caught.
Im Faris asks if we would not like to hear some of the rhymes the Arab women sing when playing with their children. Here are some of them. The first one you will think is like what you have already seen in "Mother Goose."
Blacksmith, blacksmith, shoe the mare,
Shoe the colt with greatest care;
Hold the shoe and drive the nail,
Else your labor all will fail;
Shoe a donkey for Seleem,
And a colt for Ibraheem.
Sugar cane grows luxuriantly in Syria, and it was first taken from Tripoli, Syria, to Spain, and thence to the West Indies and America. But all they do with it now in Syria, is to suck it. It is cut up in pieces and sold to the people, old and young, who peel it and suck it. So the Arab women sing to their children:
Pluck it and suck it, the green sugar cane,
Whatever is sweet is costly and vain;
He'll cut you a joint as long as a span,
And charge two piastres. Now buy if you can!
Wered says she will sing us two or three which they use in teaching the little Arab babies to "pat" their hands:
Patty cake, baby! Make him dance!
May his age increase and his years advance!
May his life like the rock, long years endure,
Overgrown with lilies, so sweet and pure!
And now the Sit Leila is singing again one of the Druze lullabys: