To the Village Poet

Sir Poet,

A humane man you are — and how much we need, in this world of misery, the humane! A patriot you are — and how much we need, in the midst of this collapse, proud patriots! — men who recoil from injustice, who hate humiliation, who rise up against the pretenders to Arabism.

Your kind letter reached me, and in it is a revolt of soul that sets one aflame, and moans of oppression that make one sick. And with it reached me 100 copies of the "Lamiyyat," as you say — and 75 copies, as the customs office says, which wished (or others among the officials wished) to enjoy your literature free of charge, or at the expense of the refugees, as everyone does! These copies, with the pressings of your heart that are in them, you sent to me that I might sell them and present their price to the wretched refugees — as if the title "refugee" were not misery enough for them...

And I thanked you over and over: I thanked you for your trust in me — with the seas and their waves between us, and you not knowing me personally. I thanked your fine-strung sensibility, which found its way to me — for souls are soldiers that break loose from these veils which cannot bind them, and so become acquainted...

And I thanked your humanity: you feel from afar the pains and the tragedies, and you give what you possess — and oh, how precious is what you possess! — while the owners of the nearby palaces shut their eyes lest they see, and stop their ears lest they hear, lest what they see and hear should trouble the serenity of their lives!

And I looked at your "Lamiyyat," and read its opening, and it pained me. Is it not a beautiful dream, after which we awoke upon the calamitous truth..? And I saw the trifling price: a lira and a quarter — the price of what..?

Is it the price of a spiritual delight, like a cup of aged wine which the poet pours out of his soul and offers to people unmixed? Is it the price of that peace of mind felt by everyone who wipes away a tear and lightens an anguish..? Is it the price of a lapse we all committed, so that we all must atone for it..?

All I hope is that appreciative, open-handed givers may be found, or some of them — if for nothing else, then in mercy toward us, we around whom despair has grown black, so that we have lost hope in mercy, in patriotism, and in all the high ideals that lie dying around us in the world of Arabism. Peace be upon you, and thanks to you..