ABU RISHA 175the poet illustrates his theme by resorting to the two contrasting aspects of
woman (common in much romantic poetry), woman the enticer, the tempt-
ress, the object of physical passioa and woman the angel, the heavenly
bride - although it must be admitted that the conflict between the two does
not possess the same degree of intensity or even reality as in that between
the soul and the body which we have seen in the case of Abu Shabaka.^153
At times he attacks woman mercilessly, as in 'Storm' in which the disturbed
and unhappy poet condemns a prostitute at the very moment he is asking her
to make love, or in the much later work Delilah', the title of which is suf-
ficiently indicative of the poet's feelings. Likewise in 'The Wretched Woman'
a prostitute avenges herself on her clients by passing on to them venereal
diseases.^154 But Abu Risha is also capable of writing poems of great tender-
ness about women. For instance, 'Lamp and Bed', which appears in a later
volume in a revised form under the title of 'Deprivation', describes how the
force of the poet's love for his mistress who has deserted him makes him
imagine her lying on his bed as he enters his room, so vividly that it is
only by touching the bed that he realizes she is not there. In 'An Attempt' the
desolate poet in his lonely room resorts to drinking in the hope of forgetting
all around him and inducing an image of his mistress who has deserted
him.^155 But perhaps the most moving of his love poems is 'The Ghost of the
Past',^156 which shows the poet's inability to forget an unfortunate old love,
as the ghost of his past love haunts him in the midst of his enjoyment of a
subsequent affair. The woman is described in vivid and attractive detail as
she lies asleep on the couch in the poet's bedroom at night while he, unable to
sleep, finishes his glass of wine in the stillness of the room disturbed only by
'the breath of darkness'. Fearful silence flows in the room and with it flow his
thoughts. He watches her as she sleeps, light casting a faint shadow on her
cheek, her tired arm resting on her forehead, displacing a lock of her black
hair. His eye slides down her neck, resting on the cleavage of her breasts,
partially uncovered. Gradually his certainty that his old love has been over-
come and forgotten is undermined, as the sad ghost of the past appears as if
to chide or to mock him. The poet cannot tell. The scene is set by means of a
skilful choice of details and a number of vivid images and the strikingly sen-
suous description of which Abu Risha is a master (as is clear in poems as di-
verse as "Ennui' and 'Joan of Arc'), all of which render the experience
sufficiently concrete and individualized, for the peculiar emotional blend
of nostalgia and hopeless despair aroused by the highly evocative language
to become totally free from the taint of sentimentality.
There are, however, two basic themes which crop up continually in Abu
Risha's poetry: time and change, and art and life. Beauty withering away,