An Invitation to Nature

A vast, boundless space without end; sweet, limpid water gushing from springs on the slopes of the mountains; soft, fertile soil clothing the face of the earth with its quiet color, to veil the marvels and wonders within it; green, fruit-bearing trees whose leaves the breeze caresses, so that they quiver with delight and express their delight in a gentle rustling murmured among their boughs, whose melodies the lyre of the greatest musician is powerless to imitate — this is the nature to which we take refuge in this month of every year.

Yes, this is the nature which God the Generous created, and created us to live in, that perhaps, when we behold it and feast our eyes upon its beauty, we may learn what true beauty is, and what immortal genius is. This is the nature which, when the poet first beheld it, he hastened to set into verse the beauty it had scattered in prose — because he is a creature of imagination, and it is nature's right to nourish his imagination. For the sky is beautiful, says Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti: "The sky is beautiful, and the poet is he who can grasp the secret of its beauty, and pierce with his gaze its clear blue vault, seeing in that far celestial world what no eye sees and no glance attains. And the sea is mighty, and the poet is he who feels its might and its majesty, and sees upon its trembling, swaying surface the images of the nations it has swallowed, the cities it has effaced, and the states it has destroyed, while it remains in its own form, unchanging, unaltering, undecaying through the passing of ages and days. And the night is desolate, and the poet is he who hears in its silence and stillness the moaning of those who weep, the sighs of those in pain, and the voices of prayer rising to the horizons of heaven; who sees the shapes of the dreams hovering about the beds of the sleepers, and the phantoms of happiness and misery wandering in the heads of the fortunate and the luckless. The poet sees beauty in everything his hearing and his sight can reach — even in the withered flower, the faded plant, the flying bee, and the hovering butterfly; by his vast imagination he lives in a perpetual blessing that is never exhausted and never wears out."

This is what al-Manfaluti says of the poet, and it is among the finest things ever said of him. But if the poet sees beauty in the withered flower and the faded plant, how must it be with him when he beholds it in enchanting nature — nature whose magic works upon his imagination, taking him by the hand, polishing his power of expression, and making words flow upon his tongue with the best that the poetic gift of a man who fashions verse can bestow?

Our life is like the life of the river descending from its source in the mountain heights and sinking toward its mouth in the great sea. Our life is like its life: it moves on despite itself, hurrying, rushing; the boulders block its way and only add to its strength; the tributaries pour into it and it grows mightier thereby, and more able to face hardships. Our life is like its life: for we, like it, move swiftly from the days of our youth to the age of our old age; grave difficulties block us on our way and only add to our strength; the troubles of the days league themselves against us and leave us only the stronger. Our life is like its life: for if the river does not give its sweet waters to nature, to nourish her crops with them and quench her thirsty ones, it lives outcast and forgotten and passes away hated and blamed; and so it is with us — if we do not give the world the fruit of our efforts and the essence of our toil, we become outcast and forgotten, and our name is as a name never written upon the brow of history.

This is the river's inspiration for us and for the poets among the sons of our nation. But nature is not one river running from the mountain heights to the low valleys; no — nature is a wondrous, strange mixture, composed not of rivers alone, but of mountains and valleys and trees and flowers; and this delightful mixture changes and alters, donning for every season its robe and for every time its dress. The poets have marveled at this wondrous mixture and been moved by its inspiration — and how not, when it is the substance of their imagination and the spring of their emotions? Ibn Sahl al-Ishbili said of it:

The earth has put on a green mantle,
and the dew scatters jewels upon its hills.

It stirred, and you would think its blossoms camphor,
and take its gold-dust there for the sharpest musk.

As if its lily clasped hands with its rose —
a mouth kissing a red cheek.
And the river amid the gardens — you would take it
for a sword hung upon a green baldric,
And when it gleams, bright silver,
the sun's hand turns it to yellow gold.
And the birds have risen in it as its preachers,
taking no pulpit but the arak tree.

Let us return to nature and ask her what she may inspire in us — we, the brothers of those poets in whom she inspired what she inspired. Will she perhaps inspire in us that same inspiration, knowing as she does that we have no power of vast imagining, and no capacity for coining words and stringing rhymes? Have not the firm-set mountains, the deep valleys, the rising sun, and the long night an inspiration to breathe into us, to light for us the roads of life and its turnings? Indeed they have an inspiration that beguiles hearts away from their fancies, carries thoughts beyond their range, and loosens tongues in praise and thanksgiving, glorifying the Creator and thanking Him for the bounties He has bestowed upon us and upon her.

She has an inspiration demanding that we be like the firm-set mountains, before which the storms come to nothing and around which the echoes die away — the firm-set mountains: the very pattern of steadfastness and patience, of loftiness and height. Shall we not take them as our model in steadfastness and patience under the assaults of the days, and in rising and ascending to the summits of glory and the air of success?

Nature has an inspiration demanding that we be like the valleys adorned with flowers and sweet herbs, refreshed by what comes down to them of the waters of the mountains — the valleys: the pattern of richness and fertility, of plenty and ease. Is not their fertility owed to their lowness and their humility? Shall we not be like them in humility, that we may be like them in richness and ease?

Nature has an inspiration demanding that we be like the tall trees that shade the weary with their spreading shade and feed the hungry with their delicious fruit. Why, then, should we not be like the tall trees?

Life is a day and a night succeeding each other: the day does not last, nor does the night settle. Life is a summer and a winter: the summer does not remain, nor does the winter stay. Life is a blend of shining sun and pitch darkness; life is a sum of serenity and turbidity, of security and caution, of happiness and hardship, of adversity and ease; and the wise man is he who strives to grasp the essence of its secret and to profit from its sweet and its bitter, whom the sun of his today does not make forget to think of the night of his tomorrow — so that he makes ready his provision for the coming night, and prepares for it a lamp to light his way, by whose light the desolation of the darkness is dispersed.

Life is a great, teeming sea; its waters rage and its waves clash, and when they touch the bounds of the dry land they fall back, abashed, frightened and terrified at venturing into a place forbidden to them. The sun rises upon its waters and you would take them for pearls scattered upon its surface, their order disturbed only by that perpetual motion among the waves — and that perpetual motion is nothing but a spark of the secret of life. The poets of humanity have marveled at the sea, because their life is like its life: mysterious as its mystery, turbulent as its turbulence; and the writers have marveled at it likewise, and have gone on recalling it, counting up its merits, and attributing to it every glory and every miracle.

To nature, then — abounding in springs and flowers; to the mountains flourishing with trees and birds; to the valleys, where the deep shade and the gentle breeze are; to the banks of the rivers and the shores of the seas. There, in the breadth of open space, between the water and the delicate air, there man enjoys the nature of inspiration and the inspiration of nature; there, where modesty, simplicity, and vigor hover, and plainness and contentment shine forth; there the poets and authors find what they have long sought, and renew the lost strength of their bodies; there, in the shadow of the humble huts, where the eye sees nothing but water and greenness, splendor and freshness, is revealed the spirit of Lamartine and Milton and Abu al-'Ala' and Lisan al-Din ibn al-Khatib and the blind poet of Tudela — that poet who, when he opened his famous muwashshah with the words:

Laughing to show pearls,
unveiled, a full moon;
time was too narrow to hold him,
yet my breast contained him

the famous Ibn Baqi tore up his own muwashshah, and the rest of the poets followed him.

To nature, then, where the spirit of the departed writers and poets is revealed, kindling by its revelation the flame of brilliance and genius in our contemporary poets and writers, and stirring the energies of the men of business and crafts and industries, so that when the summer season is over they return to the pursuit of their work joyful and vigorous, having made prudence their guide and resolution their pasture.