Sixth: the idea of the text and the meaning of homeland

06Sixth: the idea of the text and the meaning of homeland

The homeland in the text

• The homeland does not appear as a piece of land with borders, but as a living existence and a living world that fills the poet's feeling and overflows with life and movement, in which creatures beat with life.
• The phrase "ya kull… (O all…)" — a call plus the word "kull" (all) — recurs, followed by words from the world of sounds (a melody, a clap, a warble) that carry pleasing senses.
• The sources of these sounds are: the palate of the bird, the wave of the river, and the footsteps of the shepherds over the grass.
• The word "kull" expresses generality and shows the amount of joy and rapture that floods the poet.
• The first verse is the focus of the text: the homeland is everything he wishes for; in it is beauty in all its colours, and in it are magic and love.

Religious tolerance

• "To whom does the crescent raise its mosque? To whom does the cross show its temple?" — the mosque beside the church and the crescent alongside the cross.
• The children of one homeland are joined by love of it and readiness to defend it whatever the challenges.

The night as a symbol of ordeal

• The night is the occupation, the trials and the hardships that threaten the homeland; its tyranny grew strong, but the poet promises to scatter it.
• Everyone faces it: the shores, the flowers, the lives, the breeze, the wave, the bird, and the hands that light the lamp of progress and hopes.
• The means of resistance are not restricted to weapons — defending the homeland is an obligation on everyone belonging to it, by every possible means.
• And the poet brings back the dawn of the homeland from the hand of ordeal, shining like the sun above the world.