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
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