ABU SHABAKA 147his predilection for simple dictioa muted music, short metres and multiple
rhymes the influence of his readings in Mahjar poetry is unmistakable. His
passion for French poetry is revealed in, among other things, his verse trans-
lation of poems by Lamartine and de Musset. But despite the obvious signs
of immaturity and even of occasionally shaky grammar, the volume, as some
critics realized, bears the marks of true poetic talent.^78 The book is dedicated
to the memory of the poet's father whose murder had a devastating effect
upon the ten-year-old boy, and seemed to colour his general attitudes for most
of his life. It is full of poems expressive of deep sorrow and a loss of direction,
despair and a desire for death.^79 Some of them, such as 'Song of Sunset',
clearly betray the influence of Mahjar poetry.^80
The same romantic pessimism and desire for death found in The Lyre is
expressed indirectly in the next published work. The Silent Invalid, a long
narrative poem woven round the true story of a young Lebanese who falls
in love with an Egyptian girl but contracts tuberculosis and soon dies in
Zahla, to the anguish of his heart-broken sweetheart. As it has been put,
'The young man who prepares to die in silence is none other than the poet of
The Lyre himself.'^81 This poem does not seem to represent any significant
advance on the earlier work and is not entirely free from sentimentality. But
with Ghahvd which was written between 1926 and 1932, although not
published till 1945, Abu Shabaka really breaks new ground.
Ghabfi/d is a narrative poem in the best romantic tradition, clearly
a development of Mutran but much more subjective, complex and subtle
than anything written by the older poet. The subject is an unusual one. The
poem is in four parts: the first, which begins with an idyllic description of
a winter's landscape, tells the story of Shafiq returning home in an idealized
Lebanese village late one wintry night to find his mother still awake because
she has heard the disturbing news of the serious illness of a neighbour's
daughter, Ghalwa. Later that night Shafiq has a vision of Ghalwa, first in the
beauty and bloom of her youth, then as a dead corpse in all its hideous aspects,
and he soon discovers that he is in love with her. The story of her illness is
then related. Ghalwa, a young and innocent maiden of rare beauty, goes to
Tyre to visit a relation called Warda who is a very attractive woman of
enormous sexual appeal. In the middle of the night Ghalwa is woken up by
moaning sounds and she discovers to her horror Warda, who occupies a bed
next to hers, in the arms of a man engaged in sexual intercourse. Ghalwa
runs away from the house, distraught, and makes for the rocks on the sea-
shore, passing through a cemetery on her way. The shock makes her very
ill and feverish and nearly unhinges her mind. She falls a prey to hallucina-
tions and delusions, and when she wakes up she is convinced it was she