is
descriptive. It is the poet who speaks, and his personality pervades the
whole poem. He describes nature as he finds it, with little of the
imaginative, "in dim grand outlines of a picture which must be filled
up by the reader, guided only by a few glorious touches powerfully
standing out." A native quickness of apprehension and intense feeling
nurtured this poetic sentiment among the Arabs. The continuous enmity
among the various tribes produced a sort of knight-errantry which gave
material to the poet; and the richness of his language put a tongue in
his mouth which could voice forth the finest shades of description or
sentiment. Al-Damari has wisely said: "Wisdom has alighted upon three
things,--the brain of the Franks, the hands of the Chinese, and the
tongues of the Arabs."

The horizon which bounded the Arab poet's view was not far drawn out. He
describes the scenes of his desert life: the sand dunes; the camel,
antelope, wild ass, and gazelle; his bow and arrow and his sword; his
loved one torn from him by the sudden striking of the tents and
departure of her tribe. The virtues which he sings are those in which he
glories, "love of freedom, independence in thought and action,
truthfulness, largeness of heart, generosity, and hospitality." His
descriptions breathe the freshness of his outdoor life and bring us
close to nature: his whole tone rings out a solemn note, which is even
in his lighter moments grave and serious,--as existence itself was for
those sons of the desert, who had no settled habitation, and who, more
than any one, depended upon the bounty of Allah. Although these Kasidahs
passed rapidly from mouth to mouth, little would have been preserved for
us had there not been a class of men who, led on some by desire, some by
necessity, made it their business to write down the compositions, and to
keep fresh in their memory the very pronunciation of each word. Every
poet had such a Rawiah. Of one Hammad it is said that he could recite
one hundred Kasidahs rhyming on each letter of the alphabet, each
Kasidah having at least one hundred verses. Abu Tammam (805), the author
of the 'Hamasah,' is reported to have known by heart fourteen thousand
pieces of the metre rajaz. It was not, however, until the end of the
first century of the Hijrah that systematic collections of this older
literature were commenced.

It was this very Hammad (died 777) who put together seven of the
choicest poems of the early Arabs