This ancient poetry of the Arabs is the reflection of the people’s life. Far away from the trouble of the world, barred by wild wastes from the stranger, the Bedawee lived his happy child’s life, enjoying to the uttermost the good the gods had sent him, delighting in the face that Nature showed him, inspired by the glorious breath of the deserts that were his home. His poetry rings of that desert life. It is emotional, passionate, seldom reflective. Not the end of life, the whence and the whither, but the actual present joy of existence, was the subject of his song. Vivid painting of nature is the characteristic of this poetry: it is natural, unpolished, unlaboured. The scenes of the desert—the terrors of the nightly ride through the hill-girdled valley where the Ghools and the Jinn have their haunts; the gloom of the barren plain, where the wolf, ‘like a ruined gamester,’ roams ululating; the weariness of the journey under the noonday sun; the stifling of the sand-storm, the delusions of the mirage; or again, the solace of the palm-tree’s shade, and the delights of the cool well;—such are the pictures of the Arab poet. The people’s life is another frequent theme: the daily doings of the herdsman, the quiet pastoral life, on the one hand; on the other, the deeds of the chiefs—war, plunder, the chase, wassail, revenge, friendship, love. There were satires on rival tribes, panegyrics on chiefs, laments for the dead. This poetry is wholly objective, artless, childlike; it is the outcome of a people still in the freshness of youth, whom the mysteries and complications of life have not yet set a-thinking. ‘Just as his language knows but the present and the past, so the ancient Arab lived but in to-day and yesterday. The future is nought to him; he seizes the present with too thorough abandonment to have an emotion left for anything beyond. He troubles himself not with what fate the morrow may bring forth, he dreams not of a beautiful future,—only he revels in the present, and his glance looks backward alone. Rich in ideas and impressions, he is poor in thought. He drains hastily the foaming cup of life; he feels deeply and passionately; but it is as if he were never conscious of the coming of the thoughtful age which, while it surveys the past, as often turns an anxious look to the unknown future.’