BAYYATI AND THE COMMITTED POETS 219its conception of the poet as a solitary, suffering being, hopelessly in love with
an ideal and full of vague longings. Such poetry soon came to be regarded as
poetry of adolescence.
In his later poetry Hijazi became increasingly interested in Arab national-
ism. In the preface to his poem 'Aures', which was inspired by the Algerian
revolution and attained great popularity, he wrote (1959): 'I have found in
the idea of Arab nationalism an embodiment of the spirit of the people, as
well as my own personal salvation from a violent intellectual crisis which
nearly drove me to a psychological breakdown' (p. 390). Like other Arab
poets he was drawn to Paul Eluard because of his political position: in 'Aures'
he quotes from a poem in which Eluard laments the death of a man belong-
ing to the French Resistance who had been shot by the German Nazis (p. 409).
Hijazi is a committed Arab nationalist and a Nasserite who wrote more than
one poem on Nasser in which he gave expression to his feelings of hero-
worship. This is particularly true of his moving elegies on Nasser in 'The
Journey has Begun' and the title poem of the last volume, 'An Elegy on the
Handsome Life' (pp. 484, 546). In his recent poetry Hijazi too shows the
dominant influence of surrealism, in his tendency to break down logical
sequence and his predilection for surprising imagery.
A similar sense of compassion for the victims of city life to that we have seen
in Hijazi's early work is sometimes shown in the work of the Sudanese poet
Muhammad Miftah al-Faituri (b. 1930), who was born and brought up in
Egypt. For instance, in a well-known poem. Under the Rain' he writes :2SO driver, have mercy on the jaded horses.
Cease, for the iron of the saddle has cut into the horses' necks
And made them bleed.
Their eyes can no longer see the road.
Thus death was chanting around the coach
As it went down swaying under the rain in the dark.
But the black driver with sick emaciated face
Pulled the overcoat over his face in despair,
Casting a faint light on the road, like the light of setting stars.
And his crying whip sang on the horses' backs,
So they winced and staggered and plodded on in a trance, (pp. 193—4)
Clearly in Faituri's treatment both the horses and their driver, 'with sick
emaciated face', indeed the entire world which they inhabit, is in great need
of mercy. This poem comes from his collection Songs of Africa (1955) which,
as the title suggests, includes poems denouncing colonialism and the ex-
ploitation of the black by the white, written in a dense, euphonious style, rich