Spring Among the Poets

Welcome! We have melted with longing, O Spring—
O light-spirited one, hail and welcome!

The Woman's Voice desired of me that I offer it a pleasant talk of spring. So I said to myself: Is a talk "on spring" to be asked of a man whose ears the crickets of summer have all but deafened? And I feared that Gibran's words might prove true of us:

Would that I knew—is there any return for what has passed,
or any coming back of a beloved and a familiar friend?
Can September comprehend the melodies of spring
with autumn's leaves upon its ears?

But then I remembered a little piece of verse we used to chant as children, singing:

Winter is gone, spring has come—
clap, clap your hands, Wadih!

And I said: perhaps I am the fittest of The Woman's Voice's friends for this talk. Nor did it trouble me much whether Gibran's words proved true of us. Rather I found myself murmuring, without quite meaning to, some verses of Abu Madi:

So if the earth folds us away from its flowers,
and the dark is empty of us while full moons fill it,
you shall return, a perfumed thicket
in whose heights I am a spellbound nightingale,
singing to her and flying about her sides,
and she brightens when he sings and when he flies.

However that may be, I shall clap with the clappers and sing with the singers, and it is all one to me whether I be thirty or sixty! I shall listen forever to the songs of spring so long as a heart beats in my breast and a tongue stirs in my mouth. The poet can do no other than speak of spring and its birds, its brooks and its greenery, its evenings and its dawns, its lights and its blossoms. For spring is the poem of the Lord of the Worlds, which He wrought of roses and jasmine, of narcissus and eglantine. That is why the poets have preferred spring to all the other seasons, and al-Sanawbari spoke with their tongue:

If in summer there be sweet basil and fruit,
still the earth is a brazier and the air an oven;
and if in autumn the palms be ready for picking,
still the earth is naked and the air bitter cold;
and if in winter the rain fall without ceasing,
still the earth is besieged and the air held captive.
Time is nothing but luminous spring:
when spring comes, blossom and light come to you—

The earth is a ruby and the air a pearl,
the plants are turquoise and the water crystal.

And one poet said:

Four things give life indeed
to spirit, soul, and body:
water, and greenery, and boon companions,
and a comely form.

And al-Mutanabbi said:

The dwellings of the vale, for sweetness among all dwellings,
hold the place of spring among the seasons.

And I share Bechara al-Khoury's astonished wonder at the beauty who shuns the inspired poet and grants him nothing of her magic and her perfume, when, had she any sense, poetry would have moved her to give and song would have tempted her—for in poetry there is immortality for her, and permanence for her beauty:

Marvel, then, at a possessor of beauty who spurns a poet
who lives on to immortalize her, and shies away!
What is beauty, were it not for poetry, but a flower
the glance toys with for two brief moments?
Yet if some tenderness from a poet reach it,
or a tear come falling down,
the blood of immortality runs in its petals,
and fate lies asleep beneath its feet.

The true poet has sung his verses to spring only to fashion them into necklaces for the throat of the gardens and the fields—magic necklaces, every bead of which splits open upon a spring: a world looks out of it, a love shines forth, a wing beats. Then are tongues loosed from their tether—God unties their knots—that they may tell of God's blessings. Then the storm falls silent, the face of the sky clears, the stars peer out of their coverts, the night hushes to listen, the throats of lovers break into song, the roses meet one another to the measure of the brooks and pools, and the birds swing on the branches, singing and caroling. And how splendid is the quickening of spring in the picture Salah al-Asir paints:

Spring has appeared in shining splendor,
generous of airs, wide of purpose,
sowing warmth in space, moving softly on,
dyeing with perfumes the face of the hollows;
the gleam of song has filled the earth's expanse
with plenty, and filled the hopes of men;
you see the trees leaping toward the heights,
green with pride, laughing at their new birth,
embracing the bird that had grown weary
of winter's lightnings and its thunders;
the air grows sweet in the clear procession,
and fragrance drifts through every valley—

and you see the woodland fresh, and the red roses a wedding overflowing with blossoms.

It is the wedding of spring, of which the poet of spring, Safi al-Din al-Hilli, spoke in times gone by:

Spring has arrived—so welcome to its coming,
to the light of its gladness and the bloom of its roses!
The branch has been clothed in fine gauze
after the hands of winter had set about stripping it;
it has won back youth after gray hairs, and the water
of young life runs again in the roots of its wood;
and the rose atop the branches is like
a king ringed round by the chieftains of his soldiers.
Do you not see the delicate ripples, and what shapes
and courses of theirs appear before the eye?
The clouds hold funerals in the sky
while the earth keeps time's wedding and its feast.

Aye, by God, it is the wedding of time—the wedding of youth in full sap. It is the wedding of April, which Fawzi Maalouf sings:

All that is on the earth, all that is in eternity
stirs rapture and summons love:
the burning of the star, the moaning of the foam,
the breath of the blossom and the breathings of the air.
Come, then, let us sip the wine of kisses
under the shade of the willow;
see how branch has twined upon branch—
so does my hand twine your waist;
and passion in the flower's smiling mouth has sunk down,
sipping, as I do, the dark dew-moist lips;
and see the star leaning out over the garden,
drowsy-lidded.

And al-Buhturi says:

Radiant spring has come to you, strutting and laughing
with beauty, till it almost spoke;
and Nowruz, in the dusk of darkness, has wakened
the first roses, that only yesterday were sleeping.

And al-Raffa says:

Do you not see the roses spring has disclosed
after a whole year had passed with them hidden away?
They were in green robes, and have cast them off—
save for loops and buttons left forgotten.

And al-Hasan ibn Wahb says:

The first days of spring have risen and brought
the garden's blossoms tidings of renewal and youth;
you see the branches, when the winds moan against each other,
entwined like the embracing of lovers.

And how charming is what Baha al-Din Zuhayr says:

Do you not see the mouth of the flowers smiling
for joy, and the naked branches now clothed?
The clouds have stopped over the hills, bewildered,
and the breeze walks the gardens in fetters.

And how splendid is what al-Sharif al-Radi says:

From every night-journeying cloud, whose spray is like
needles stitching striped mantles for the gardens;
they scattered their matchless pearls, and the hills strung
of those pearls chains and necklaces.

And Lisan al-Din ibn al-Khatib says:

What purer delight can a man attain
than when the garden has sheltered him within it,
where the flowers seize their opportunities,
safe from the guile of fate one guards against?
When the water murmurs plaintively with the pebbles,
and every friend is alone with his brother,
you see the rose, jealous and vexed,
wearing whatever its rage may clothe it in,
and you see the myrtle, clever and knowing,
eavesdropping with the ears of a horse.

And Abu Nuwas says:

Do you not see how the hands of the clouds have embroidered
the earth's garments with marvels of sweet herbs—
lilies fresh for the plucking, and lavender,
and violets, and anemones,
like necklaces of ruby strung together with pearl,
their centers the choicest beads of gold?

And Shawqi Bey says:

March has come—rise with me, my friend,
and hail spring, the garden of souls;
gather the companions of wit beneath its banner
and spread across its court the carpet of wine;
and sit in the laughing garden, clapping your hands
to the answering music of strings and cups.

As for the poet Rashid Ayyub al-Houri, known as the Dervish, he welcomed spring as one friend welcomes another, without a trace of ceremony, as though they were two faithful companions who part only to meet again... And it is fitting that I close this piece of mine with two verses from his gilded poem—not because it is the finest that has been said, but because in the whispers of its verses I heard something of sincerity and of love for enchanting nature and for the beautiful, faithful spring that never forgets the gardens and the fields:

Welcome! We have melted with longing, O Spring—
O light-spirited one, hail and welcome!
Whenever your wondrous face shines out,
the earth rises up to rival the stars.