ABU SHADI 123crows, the hoopoe, flowers like violets, fields and canals, the Nile and the
desert. In 'Evening in the Desert' he describes the desert at night and people
huddled round the fire in the cold desert night. In 'The Stars' he described
stars as:
looking like holes behind which the Invisible lurks in its clouds.'A Country Worshipper' gives a good description of a countryman perform-
ing his evening prayers in a field against the background of chirrupping
birds and bubbling brook at the hour of sunset, which provokes the thought
that beauty is the best means by which to reach God. 'Sunrise in Tranquillity'
is a lyrical account of the way in which the whole world, 'nations' of birds,
flowers, brooks, grains of sand and pebbles have all joined, each in its own
language of adoration, in a fervent hymn to sunrise. 'A Cat and its Looking
Glass' describes in vivid details a white cat drinking from a pond in the green
park.^18 A better-known poem, 'The Autumn Leaves',^19 describes leaves as
Pale like death with a blood-like streak of red.
As if slain by the ruthless orders of autumn.In his poem 'On the Melancholy Road',^2 composed when the poet was
passing through the old village of Matariyya, Abu Shadi says that the
world of men with its evil and corruption is not for him since 'his being is
wrought of the songs of light', his 'dreams are made of the stars', and Tiis cup
is filled with their radiance'. In the sanctuary of nature the artist's senses are
sharpened, he is enabled to hear clearly what would otherwise remain un-
heard or confused. To Abu Shadi nature was, as in the case of Wordsworth
before him, a constant source of spiritual joy, for there is a relationship of
harmony between it and the mind of man. He also seems to have been in-
fluenced by Mutran in his belief that the whole universe is bound together by
the principle of love. But, unlike Mutran the Catholic, Abu Shadi developed a
rather humanistic philosophy which resulted in his tacit belief in the perfect-
ibility of man.
One particular aspect of nature that Abu Shadi never tired of describing
was the sea in its various shapes and moods. As is to be expected he does
not give us an external description, but he enters into a spiritual relationship
with it. Often he does not impose his own mood upon the sea, reducing it to
a mere echo of his own feelings, but approaches it passively in a reverential
and receptive mood and lets it induce in his soul its healing power of joy.
At one point (in 'From the Heavens') he addresses the sea as 'Our father...
to whom I now return with a yearning thirst for his inspiration'. In 'The
Waves'^21 he compares the waves to a feast in which light is intoxicated.