The Nature of Sadness
Sadness is a psychological pain characterized by feelings of despair and helplessness. It often arises from dissatisfaction due to a particular issue one encounters and manifests as negative emotions. When individuals experience sadness, they tend to become less active, subdued, and emotionally reactive, sometimes leading to tears. Furthermore, sad poetry consists of verses that reflect the state of a grieving person or the reasons for their sorrow. In this article, we will present a selection of poignant poems that encapsulate the essence of sadness.
An Arabic Remedy for Love’s Suffering
Nizar Qabbani, a contemporary Syrian diplomat and poet, was born in Damascus on March 21, 1923. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Damascus in 1945 and joined the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among his melancholic verses, he penned:
I imagined your love
Overflowing on my skin
I would treat it with water or with spirits
I justified it as climate variations
And attributed it to the change of seasons
Whenever they asked me, I would say
It’s just a whim of the soul
And a ray of sun
A small scratch on my face that would fade away
I envisioned your love as a small river
That would revive the meadows and irrigate the fields
But it surged into my life’s wilderness
Flooding all the villages
And destroying every plain
My bed was dragged away
And the walls of my house
Left me on a foundation of bewilderment
Initially, I thought
Your affection would pass like clouds
That you were the shore of security
And the bank of peace
I assumed that the matter between us
Would diminish like all matters do
And that you would dissolve like writing on mirrors
I thought the passing of time
Would sever all roots of affection
And cover every corner with snow
I imagined my passion for your eyes was merely excitement
Like any fleeting emotion
And that my words about love were just ordinary dialogue
Now I have discovered I was short on imagination
Your love was not a fever
To be cured with violet water or fennel
Nor was it a slight scratch
That could be treated with herb or ointment
It wasn’t merely a cold
That would dissipate with the north wind’s departure
But a sword nestled in my flesh
An occupying army
And the first phase on the path to madness
And the first stage on the road to insanity
Elegy for Balqis
Nizar Qabbani composed a poignant elegy for his wife Balqis, who tragically lost her life in a bombing at the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut, which was published in his 1982 collection. He writes:
Thank you
Thank you
For my beloved has been killed, and now you have
The luxury to drink a toast at the grave of the martyr
And my poem has been assassinated
Is there any nation on earth
Other than us that murders poetry?
Balqis
Was the most beautiful of queens in the history of Babel
Balqis
Stood as the tallest palm in the land of Iraq
When she walked
Peacocks accompanied her
And fawns trailed her
Balqis, oh my pain
And the pain of poetry when fingers touch it
Will there, after your hair, ever be a rising ear of grain?
Oh green Nineveh
Oh my fair gypsy
Oh waves of the Tigris
That wear the sweetest anklets in spring
You were killed, Balqis
Which Arab nation is it
That kills the voices of the nightingales?
Where are the Samawals
And the Muhalhal
And the early nobles?
For tribes have devoured tribes
And foxes have slain foxes
And spiders have killed spiders
I swear by your eyes, to which
Millions of stars retreat
I will speak of the wonders of the Arabs
Is heroism merely an Arab lie
Or is history, like us, a deceiver?
Balqis
Do not disappear from me
For the sun after you
No longer shines on the shores
I will declare in the investigation
That the thief now wears the soldier’s robe
And I will assert in the investigation
That the gifted leader has become like a contractor
And I will assert
That the tale of illumination is the silliest joke ever told
For we are a tribe among tribes
This, Balqis, is history
How can one distinguish
Between gardens and disposals?
Balqis
O martyr and poem
And the purest of the sanctified
Sheba is searching for its queen
So relay to the masses my greeting
Oh greatest of queens
Oh woman who embodies every glory of the Sumerian ages
Balqis
Oh my sweetest bird
And my dearest icon
And the tear that scattered over the cheek of my longing
Did I wrong you when I carried you
One day from the banks of Adhamiyah?
Beirut kills one of us every day
And searches daily for a victim
And death resides in our coffee cups
In the key to our apartment
In the flowers gracing our balcony
And in the letters of the newspapers
And the letters of the alphabet
Here we are, Balqis
We are entering once more into a pre-Islamic era
Here we enter into savagery
Regression, ugliness, and degradation
We return once more to the ages of barbarism
Where writing is a journey
Between shard and shard
Where the assassination of a butterfly in her field
Becomes the matter of the day
Do you know my beloved Balqis?
She is the most important thing ever written in the books of love
She was a magnificent blend
Of velvet and marble
The violet between her eyes
Sleeps but does not sleep
Balqis
Oh fragrance of my memory
And the grave that travels in clouds
They killed you in Beirut like any deer
After they killed the word
Flower of Sorrow
Qassem Haddad, born in Bahrain in 1948, received his education in Bahraini schools until the second year of secondary school. He began working at the public library from 1968 until 1975. He has penned various sorrowful poems, including:
This one with fleeing eyes and laughter in pain
My mother
This weary side burdened with sorrow and cold
The other side, and me
She is my mother
These snowy legs
Who turned this night into a singing lantern?
Oh, my mother
You gave me a voice that holds the flavor of millions
That walk towards the sun and build
I was a bird in your breast
Burnt by fire, it turned to a green hand
Here is your fiery bird singing in prison
You, oh one with fleeing eyes and laughter in pain
Sing
There is nothing between light and the earth that walks, confounds, and me
Except this reddish horizon, the time, and my mother
Oh, mother who sewed my dress with your eyes
Why does the dress not pass through prison?
Why do you not sew us our other garments?
Extend the tissues that wipe my sorrow
And why the horror that turned me into a poem
On the walls of my prison?
The thorny trees do not turn in your weary eyes
To singing birds
Oh, fleeing one with laughter in pain
I am from you, words emerging like lightning from the night of legends
And you are the rose of life emerging from me
So why does sorrow flee to your cheeks, oh flower of my sorrow?
And why
A homeland wears history before sleeping
And after sleeping, history, and wakes up after
The scheduled time, knowing no door to enter
Is this my homeland or amazement on the map?
The sea has settled to sand, why?
A homeland wears the title of kings and the trousers of the monarchs
Is this my homeland or a revolution that became a river of blood?
This homeland no longer shies away from colors
And the image in black and white
Does it recall or do colors mix
In the eye of my country? Should I say
My homeland is now without a window
Tourists enter through a door to the market
Selling my country
And I am unraveled, creating children and poetry
My country sheds veils by night
As my friend mentioned
And my friend was unashamed of the flaws
Of this choking homeland
Why do you all shy away
From a homeland that is overstuffed with hunger? Does it not take a nap?
Is this my homeland or alienation? Is it the coastline of the sea
Or the forest or the caravan that is now fading away
Or the mother who weaves a garment for prisons
And who enters into the face of my country at evening
Now emerges with the dream
And this is my homeland, this is my country, this is my mother
I do not know the limits of motherland
This is a land
To you, oh fleeing one with laughter in pain
Dancing in sorrow, singing new songs
You are in the memory of history, a stormy rose that comes forth
And a poem in the prison