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ART. III.-Ancient Arabic Poetry; its Genuineness and Authenticity. By Sir WILLIAM MUIR, K.C.S.I., LL.D.

AN indescribable charm surrounds the early poetry of the Arabs. Dwelling in the wonderful creations of their genius with these ancient poets, you live, as it were, a new life. Cities, gardens, villages, the trace of even fields, left far out of sight, you get away into the free atmosphere of the desert; and, the trammels and conventionalities of settled society cast aside, you roam with the poet over the varied domain of Nature in all its freshness, artlessness, and freedom.

It is altogether another life, which the unpropitious sun of our colder climate renders possible only to the imagination. Yet Nature, in however different a garb to that which we are used to gaze upon, will strike, when faithfully described, a chord in every heart. The dweller in the North may never have witnessed the dark tents of a nomad tribe clustering around the fountain with its little oasis of trees and verdure in the midst of the boundless barren plain, nor the long strings of camels wending their weary way over the trackless sands; yet he will recognize the touch of Nature when the true poet paints the picture, lingers plaintively over the spot where the tent of a beloved one was but lately pitched, and mourns the quickly disappearing traces of her tribe's encampment.

1 Bemerkungen über die Aechtheit der alten Arabischen Gedichte. Von W. Ahlwardt, Professor an der Universität Greifswald. Greifswald, 1872.

Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen. Von Alfred von Kremer. Wien, 1875. Kapitel VIII. Poesie.

Translations from the Moallacât and Early Arab Poets. By C. J. Lyall, B.C.S. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. xlvi. Calcutta, 1877.

The needs of nomad life are few and simple; indeed, it is startling sometimes to reflect, in this age of luxury, with what small appliances, especially in a southern zone, man may live in happiness and comfort. A house or even hut would but hamper the Bedouin. A few breadths spun from the hair of the camel or the goat, a short pole or two, with a few ropes and pegs, are all he needs for a dwelling, which can be planted on any spot where the green pasture and running spring invite; and as rapidly dismantled, transported, and pitched again at will elsewhere. A bright life this, light and childlike, where carking care and the strong passions that make man live too fast elsewhere, might well have said farewell to the happy dweller. Alas, even here human nature finds ample food for vanity and envy, hatred and rapine!

The range of thought in Arabian poetry is of limited extent. Past experiences and the sentiment of the moment are described with illustrations drawn from pastoral life. The future is not thought of, nor is the attempt made to draw lessons from the past. Childlike, it is in the present that the Arab poet lives. But even in such artless rhymes there is a style and fashion. The poet must have a mistress, whose absence he mourns, and in the memory of whose smile he still loves to linger. Images of tenderness and beauty are drawn from the soft eye of the antelope or the graceful palm. The band of attendant maidens in fair apparel, in the language of Arab poetry, is like a herd of the wild cow, white and party-coloured, scouring over the brown expanse. The terrible sand-hurricane of the desert; the joys and dangers of the chase; the nightly journey, when the lone traveller starts at the gaunt bones that bleach his way, conjuring apparitions of the wayfarer who may have perished with his camel on the spot; tribal jealousies and encounters; bitter satire on the meauness of the poet's foe; the banquet or hospitable entertainment in a friendly tent; the glories of the poet's tribe; and, above all, the peerless virtues of his horse or camel-are congenial subjects with the Arabian bard, treated, if not with variety, at the least with singular

beauty, and in words that breathe the life and vigour of the desert air. The pastoral life is pictured in the simple imagery of undisturbed rural scenery. The cavalcade bearing the whole worldly goods of the tribe-the matrons and maidens borne in litters on the camels' backs-passes along the desert with its scant and scattered foliage of hardy shrubs, and, after a weary march, encamps, it may be, in a vale where the springs break forth from the slope of an adjacent hill. The clustering tents darken the background, while the grateful fountain, with its green environs and its grove of date-trees, stands in delightful contrast to the wild bleak scenery around. The maidens go forth with their pitchers to the spring; and the herds of goats return with full udders from the pasture or still sweeter but scanty foliage of the stunted acacia-trees. Arab life lives, truly, a life of its own. There is no advancing civilization wherewith to rehabilitate the surrounding imagery. The nearest approach in our own language to Arabian poetry is the book of Job, with its illustrations of the conies, the goats, and the wild ass; and even such is still the life of the desert at the present day. Cut off from the world by wilderness and by nomad habits, the Arab maintains unchanged his simplicity, affected as little by the luxury and civilization of surrounding nations, as by their politics. The pastoral eclogues of the classics are ever bordering upon urban life; but here the freshness and freedom of the wild desert is untainted by the most distant approach of the busy world. The din of the city, even the murmur of the rural hamlet, is unheard. The poet is unconscious of their existence.

Take the following from the pen of Mr. Lyall, a young Orientalist of high promise. The Moällacah of Lebîd, the contemporary of Mahomet, opens thus:

1. Effaced are her resting-places, (both) where she stayed but a while and where she dwelt long

in Mina: desolate are her camps in Ghaul and el-Rijâm,

And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and three score and ten palm-trees; and they encamped there by the waters.'-GEN.

IV. 27.

2. And by the torrents of el-Rayyân: the traces thereof are laid bare and old and worn, as the rocks still keep their graving:

3. Tent-traces over which have passed, since the time that one dwelt there,

long years with their rolling months of war and peace.

4. The showers of the Signs of Spring have fallen on them, and there have swept

over them the rains of the thundering clouds, torrents and

drizzle, both

5. The clouds that came by night, those of the morning that hid

the sky,

and the clouds of even-tide, with their antiphons of thunder; 6. There have sprung up over them the shoots of the rocket, and in the sides

of the valley the deer and the ostriches rear their young; 7. The large-eyed wild kine lie down there by their young ones just born, and their calves roam in herds over the plain. 8. The torrents have scored afresh the traces of the tents, as though they were lines of writing in a book which the pens make

new again,

9. Or the tracery which a woman draws afresh as she sprinkles the blue

over the rings, and the lines shine forth anew thereon.

10. And I stood there asking them for tidings-and wherefore did I ask

aught of deaf stones that have no voice to answer?

11. Bare was the place where the whole tribe had rested: they

passed away

therefrom at dawn, leaving behind them the tent-trenches and the thatch.

12. The camel-litters of the tribe stirred thy longing, what time they moved away

and crept into the litters hung with cotton, as the wooden

framework creaked,

13. The litters hung all round, over their frame of wood,

with hangings, thin veils and pictured curtains of wool. 14. They began their journey in bands, wide-eyed as the wild cows of Tûdih,

or deer of Wejrah as they watch their fawns lying around. 15. They were started on their way, and the sun-mist fell off them,

as though

they were low rocky ridges of Bîsheh, its tamarisks and its boulders.

16. Nay-why dost thou dwell on the thought of Nawâr? for she

is gone,

and severed is all that bound her to thee, whether strong or

weak.

17. Of Murrah was she: she halted in Feyd, then she travelled on to those of el-Hijâz. How then canst thou reach to her 18. On the Eastward slopes of Ajâ and Selma, or in Mohajjar

where Fardeh and el-Rukhâm cut her off from thy coming? 19. Or it may be she went to el-Yemen, and then her abode should be in Wihâf el-Qahr, or Tilkhâm, in Suwâ'iq. 20. Cut short then thy longing for one whose converse is changed to thee:

and verily the best in affection is he who knows how to cut its bonds.

The following is the commencement of the famous Moällacah of Zoheir :

1. Are they of Omm Aufâ's tents-these black lines that speak no word

in the stony plain of el-Mutathellem and el-Darrâj?

2. Yea, and the place where her camp stood in el-Raqmatân is now like the tracery drawn afresh by the veins of the inner wrist. 3. The wild kine roam there large-eyed, and the deer pass to and fro, and their younglings rise up to suck from the spots where they lie all round.

4. I stood there and gazed: since I saw it last twenty years had

flown,

and much I pondered thereon: hard was it to know again— 5. The black stones in order laid in the place where the pot was set, and the trench like a cistern's root with its sides unbroken still. 6. And when I knew it at last for her resting-place, I cried—

"Good greeting to thee, O House-fair peace in the morn to thee!"

7. Look forth, O Friend-canst thou see aught of ladies camel-borne that journey along the upland there above Jorthum well?

8. Their litters are hung with precious stuffs, and thin veils thereon cast loosely, their borders rose, as though they were dyed in

blood.