IN THE UNITED STATES 191with 'obstinate questionings' of the human condition: he writes about mean-
ingless and unnecessary suffering ('The Dumb Tear'), the vanity of worldly
glory ('Clay'), metaphysical doubts ('Riddles'), man's eternal restlessness ('In
the Wilderness'). Although not a mystic, Abu Madi has expressed his vague
mystical longing for the ideal in a memorable poem called 'The Hospitable
Fire'.M
In his introduction to the second volume of Abu Madi's Diwan Jibran
comments on the poet's great power of the imagination. It is this imaginative
power which makes Abu Madi the great poet he is, enabling him to express
his attitudes, feelings and ideas in terms of images and concrete situations.
When it deserts him, as it seems to do in his well-known poem 'Riddles', the
result is often merely abstract thoughts, bare statements, cold and mechanical.
But in his best poems Abu Madi's imaginative power is striking indeed, and
this may account for his skilful use of the narrative and dramatic elements
in his poetry. It may explain why his meditations on the mystery of life
and death arise naturally from a concrete situation vividly and poignantly
portrayed, as, for example, in his poem 'Evening',^33 where the sight of a girl
resting her cheek on her hand and looking sad at 'the dying of the light' and
the approach of night inspires the poet to write a poem about the human
predicament, as moving if not as concise as Hopkins's poem Spring and Fall.
The poem ends with this exhortation:
Dead is the light of day, the morning's child; ask not how it has died.
Thinking about life only increases its sorrows.
So leave aside your dejection and grief.
Regain your girlish merriment.
In the morning your face was like the morning, radiant with joy:
Cheerful and bright;
Let it be also so at night.Unlike Abu Madi, Nasib 'Arida (1887-1946) shows very little optimism in
his poetry. He was born in Hims in 1887, received his primary education hi
a Russian school and then he moved to the Russian Teachers' Training
College, where he met Nu'aima and Abdul Masih Haddad who was also to
be a member of the al-Rabita in New York. In 1905 he emigrated to the
United States and settled in New York where he had difficulty in earning
his living by means of commerce. In 1912 he set up the Atlantic Press and
in the following year he cooperated with Nazmi Nasim in founding the
literary review al-Funun. With the disappearance of the review in 1918 he
was compelled to give up journalism, but after an unsuccessful venture in
business he returned to live by his pea He lived in great financial straits.