Blessed Envy...

There, in a suburb of London, in the parks of “Richmond,” among the huge trees brimming with majesty, floating over hillocks of grass and planted beds, where the perfumes sigh and the roses breathe magical rays amid threads of drowsy waters that meet the silver lines in splendor and harmony — I sat upon the earth that sends up its secrets to the cups of the many-colored flowers, in answer to its own great secret, stamping its emotion in bright hues; and the lake had turned to melodies, and the geese upon it uttered riddles, and the majestic mist lavished on me melancholy and colors, while my heart, there, was a songbird urging me on to melt before all that sweetness and beauty!

And like the daughters of legend, I passed on the wing of my spirit from shade to shade, the phantoms of the poets leaning everywhere about, moving me to bow down before the masterpieces that nature and the learned have engraved — remembering “Byron and Tennyson,” while the eyelids of the breeze gazed upon my heart, kindling in it ease and peace.

And the procession of strollers moved around me: horsewoman and horseman on the backs of well-groomed steeds, and little girls leading elegant dogs, and a grandmother full of health with a beautiful grandchild, and a refined gentleman of handsome countenance and radiant bearing — so that I became all eyes, studying the white faces and the delicacy of coloring in their features..

And amid this pampered English throng, among the sight of old people glowing with delight.. there stole into my imagination a somber host calling to me, and in an instant I tasted the bondage that is the lot of the deprived alone, and recoiled from the complacency of the secure, and remembered my homeland!

That homeland whose great brow is trodden by the heels of sorrow, pursued by the humiliation of hatred and strife..! Why do the old women of London go strolling, serene in care and self-regard, wrapped about with gentleness of temper, rosy of cheek, with little sagging and few wrinkles, while the days clothe them in a crimson robe slow to wear out, and health enfolds them, so that their brows disclose smiles without end! And in the far reaches of their hearts the melodies throng, as if the harmony of their dress were but part of what the glory of good fortune and prosperity has to tell — so they put on the brightest of garments and the most wondrously sparkling of necklaces!

While joy is scarce as age advances in my country, where dryness and withering grow, and youth wilts between pity and struggle, and the veil of despair hangs drawn from the very dawn of youth, and the wounds burn, slow with regret, for all that has exhausted them of fetters and burdened them of responsibility, and all they have met of painful disappointment and decline!

Broken in their musing, humbled in their features are the old women of my homeland!

As if the frames of their noble ribs were the resting-place of dear departed souls, in which the chokings of tenderness burn, trodden by the feet of tyrants as the price of usurped spans of ground; so the eyes freeze, and emptiness settles in the souls, and the radiant images withdraw from the heart, wherein the shrinking of the years lies sleeping! Constant of spirit in self-denial and in giving, threatened by the waste of their burdens, their souls' melody effaced, their light gone out, while within them a thousand destroying, sinful voices cry.

Why do the stars speak in the mouths of their children, who drowse with necklaces of violets and jasmine, their soft breaths repeating what they have drunk in of the fragrance of affection, so that they go about showered with the delicate touches of love and endearment that refine in them the feelings of gentleness and trust — while the children of my homeland are used with roughness and harshness, and their pure lips mutter curse and abuse, and some of their small, helpless arms are made ready for drudgery and exhaustion!

Why are you, my majestic homeland, riddled with wounds, with grudges and hatreds dwelling within you, while the lands of the West stand strong, their joys woven by the smiles of thought and the ripening of overwhelming feeling!

Why is your radiant land the target of slander, prejudice, and calumny, while the land of these people is a beacon for the worth of the single individual, in which he is forgiven and set right and encouraged, and the ways of life are spread open before him with knowledge, aid, and understanding.

In your proud depths are smiles gone absent,

And this is a new literary gem sent to us from London by Hibah al-Wadi — marked by its unique character, a blend of patriotism, art, and delicate feeling...

and mournful brows that sob in stillness, and your sighing, all of it, stings the heart and sears the soul in the depth of its resting place; in you are anguish and concealment and the welling of renewal, and around you the secrets of the divine outpouring commune with your despair — with the whispers of Babylon, with the inspirations of Egypt, with all that arose of civilizations and flourished of building and gathered and stood forth of majesty in the Fertile Crescent, with the states that were humbled before your glory and the peoples and nations that passed away, with all the exultation and praise of God that poured forth in the Arabian Peninsula, sister of holiness, nobility, and sacrifice!

Want and pestilence crowd within you, while the West drinks its fill of sufficiency and health; and instead of breathing brotherhood into your faithful spirit, its conquering powers whet within you hatred and aversion, so that your noble breast lies still beneath the rancor of a cursing resentment!

Why does idleness eye you with a sick eye, and chaos grow fertile in your generous expanses, as if languor were driving your hesitating steps!

O structure of the years, O son of noble deeds — the hand of progress has been busily at work in the clever West while you crouch huddled behind amulets and talismans, tortured by stupor, seared by fretfulness and sloth!

So give me your fevered hand, withered with burns and scars, and put away from you the gloom of the ages; give me those rare, delicate fingers that once carried the signs of the mind to the whole world — stretch them out, that we may press upon them the kisses of contrition, and give them full measure of duty and work!

Here is the lyre of the birds playing melodies for me; here are the droplets of the waters mirrored on the thickets, telling the thirst of dreams, forming a ring that turns dancing between the gentleness of the gazelles

and the chanting of the children! Here is the mingling of warblings with waves of perfume in a garden that draws the curtain back from the mysteries of imagination!

But you, my homeland, lie crouched here in a breast tormented by longing for your growth — for your growth, for your attainment of the kaaba of perfection; and so it labors, groaning, over your horizons, lamenting your whirlwind, bursting, anguished, asking: how shall you be pushed forward?!

How shall I become, for your sake, a thief — gathering up the warblings and picking out the melodies, stealing the outward forms of refinement and progress, slipping away with my hand upon the reins of that order which raises a nation's standing and refines its individuals!

How shall I make off with something of the freshness of this abundant joy, and these deep, clear laughs, and these exquisite, well-ordered gardens — and pour them out over your dwellings... how shall I plunder this gentleness, this delicacy, this nobility of character?!!