Muhammad (Poem)

“Strangers,” a collection of verse by Salah Labaki, has recently appeared in an elegant dress from the Rihani printing and publishing house. From it we select the poem “Muhammad,” on the occasion of the Prophet's noble Birthday, which fell in the middle of last month:

Send down your peace upon mankind, Muhammad —
their sins have grown great, and the guide is rare.

God, what a night — its sense stood alone;
time halted within it, and the polestar drew near.

The sky bent low, as though the secret of its being
lay on the earth; it leaned to behold it and to watch.

The lights called out to one another — none purer
had been dreamed of; they wandered rapt, till no kohl-dark could be glimpsed.

Things asked themselves what had come upon them,
and awoke, and their frozen sense grew green again.

Gladness ran abroad, till nothing remained but a heart's last ember
hoping, drowning in splendor, giving praise.

The laws of nature were mastered and became
obedient to the Majestic One — at His word they rise and sit.

What — is there any wonder? This is his night,
this the travail within it, and this the birth.

And the child: a palm pressed into the dust, dealt
abasement, and an eye climbing into the sky.

And the universe hails the newborn and exults,
its lineage sweetened by him, and gives glory.

O messenger, you are nothing but love,
and the utterance of a love that is never spent.

Here is the Book — every saying is his saying
within it — and that is the matchless eloquence.

Who, but for you, would have kept it by heart and recited
its verses, or chanted it with art and grace?

If I go too far in boasting of you, then bear with me:
you are not the master of my creed, nor am I a godless man.

You grasped the essence of a Oneness; you declared it pure
and made it clear, and its kindled secret shone.

And you spread it among men, a Creator's gift
that guides them, exalts them, and endures forever.

Upon its name the tribes of a nation gathered,
clasping their pledge upon you — and clasping it still.

Was she — did she exist at all? Then you came, and she became
one with whom the hearing of time rings and thunders.

Had she heard the whole of your call,
eternity itself, first and last, would have turned Arab.

You made one, until all the people of the wilderness
were brothers in God, and a single hand in piety.

You made one — for man is a single essence —
and I, though a follower of Jesus, bear witness.

And you gave law, until no law has come after
but that you are its wellspring and its watering-place.

Send down your peace upon mankind, Muhammad —
their sins have grown great, and the guide is rare.