ABU SHADI 127Kingdom of Art', he says in another poem,^36 is here on earth, 'our mother
earth has created it, art flies in the sky only with regretful wings.' In 'A Tear
and a Smile', a verse-letter to Mutran in which he tries to explain the reasons
for his silence, he writes:
It is not the roaring of guns around me at night, nor the approaching
screeching of bombs...
Which ties the tongue of a friend that is affectionate and true.
It is the sorrow my heart feels for my kinsmea for my heedless people.
Who are still bewitched by idle play, even if it led to their cowardly
perdition.'^37
In 1943, despite his 'official' eulogy of King Farouk on the occasion of the
conferring of an honorary degree upon him by the University of Alexandria,^38
Abu Shadi addresses to him in The Vagrant Dead', a powerful and frank
poem in which he attacks feudalism and urges the king to redistribute land
among the landless peasants who are homeless and vagrant, wearing
humiliation and indignity for their shrouds, all dead, their tombs being the
opulent estates of the few wealthy landlords. In the poetry he wrote in
America he was naturally freer and even more outspoken: he satirized
Farouk in 'White Kaffir' (an allusion to Mutanabbi's satire on Kafur, the
negro slave who ruled EgypO.^Hecelebratedhisdethronmentandwelcomed
the declaration of the Republic.^40 He also wrote about the plight of Arab
refugees and the atrocities committed by Zionists.^41 Until the end of his life
Abu Shadi never ceased to express his love and concern for Egypt about
which he wrote many moving and nostalgic poems to be found in the second
volume of Khafaja's book on the poet. He addresses Egypt as:
Home of my youth, the dearest dream of my young days,
You are still my dream and my sweet comfort.^42Despite his idealized view of America as the land of freedom, where he
felt he could without restraints attack tyranny and injustice in Egypt, he con-
tinued to write poetry such as this:^43
Do not chide my soul for its excess of love.
The tears which you wish to deny me are but some of her tears.
Events have cast me away from her land,
Yet I continue to live in her heart.
Around me visions spring, full of her breath ...
Moved by my memories, I choke with grief...In the minds of most people Abu Shadi's name will be associated chiefly
with the Apollo Society, an indication of the great contribution he made,