76
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
flags and lined with chairs and benches. A large crowd was
already seated inside. Within half an hour the tent was
packed. The audience overflowed upon the midan, with grimy,
barefooted children dressed in tatters swarming about its
edges.
I thought it significant that most of the crowd of about two
thousand were young people, under forty. A variety of speakers, ranging from youths to seasoned rabble-rousers, harangued
them. Two orators ended their speeches with the Fascist
salute. Hussein, in excellent form, spoke on "The Strength
of Power." After him—he was applauded and cheered to the
echo—I heard the poet laureate of Misr el Fattat, a handsome
man with long, flowing hair. I have never listened to poetry
recited with more compelling eloquence. I could understand
only a few words, of course, but I found myself almost as
moved as his audience. Here was art made universal, and
translation almost superfluous. Time and again he was stopped,
and compelled to recite entire stanzas over and over. The
audience listened enraptured, breaking in with shouts of encouragement, or ecstatically moaning: "Allah! Allah!" and
"Yahya! Yahya! Live on. Live on. May your kind multiply."
Later I had one of the poems translated:
I see Palestine thirsty for water.
I call to it: Come, Palestine, drink with me,
Because I have a large quantity of water.
Come Palestine, come Palestine,
And bring with you your fire—
To set me on fire. Old iron takes its strength with fire.
Pour your fire in my heart and breast.
We are as dust in air. America never cared for us,
And commanded that all the Jews in the world
Be collected a