Ode CXIV: Her journey has carried Laila ever

Her journey has carried Laila ever further and further away, in place of our former sweet converse : yet somewhat of gain it is that I have memory to feed on.

Yet shall we have pleasance with Laila : her travel has not taken her utterly away : the hard stony plan of Kamatan is the place that holds her now.

The nights of Laila, what time she was ever my thought and my longing— my heart desiring to be quit of her, but driven to be her prey !

And when I saw that the abode was desolate, I questioned it — but its tent-trench and ashes extinguished returned us no answer :

Nought was left there but traces of vanished dwellings, as when one applies ink afresh to a writing made with the help of the ink-pot.

When al-Harith, the spoiler of his foes, makes war upon a tribe, he smites it down, and its lands to him are not far away ;

Thou didst attain to them, riding on short-haired steeds, slender as lances when they galloped : mounts are they for which blood-letting is not lawful.

Their grooms hang before them . only handfuls of dried herbs to eat, and their wandering-place is supplied with water only after a four-day interval, after they have already suffered an abstinence of nine days.

Their mares cast their foals in every halting place : the sorrel and the chestnut of them are plain to see.

Among the mares are some worn-out, at the last gasp, and some unable through weakness to throw the after-birth : their swollen livers strike the eye, as though they were goats (?).

May God suffice thee, what time there rebel against thee miserable tribe-lings, weak, with but little gear to face the foe !

Their breasts are full of hatred and envy : may those breasts never be relieved of their thorns !

On their arms are just-healed wounds caused by binding burdens on camels, like the scars which one sees on the arms of captives caused by the thongs with which they are bound.

Their beards are yellow with the stain of smoke, and long have they been roasted, waiting for some morsels of lean meat to be flung to them for food.

Then there returned to an old crone of Bahilah, who at eventide pins across her the striped sheet with a wooden pin,

A man small of ears, small-headed, what time the cavalry come back home, shouting, with Murrah [their prisoner (?)] : she was not protected, and her sleep had fled from her.

She says to him, when she sees the limp in his leg, — 'Is this the chief of a tribe ? ' — May her pillow be never at rest !

She saw a man whose face had been made haggard by warfare, one who had marked himself by a token in battle, sprung from a house whose pillars are firmly set in glory ;

And she spent the night making ready a supper for him of blood let from a camel's neck, and her heart was distracted till morning by the terrors of the blackness of night.

Ay sooth ! in spite of her fancies, I deem that what possessed her heart) returning again and again, will surely come to 'Ubaid—

There will come to 'Ubaid a camel-rider and lead him away, and go down with him into a land where the 'arad-bushes are not pastured.

And were it not for the footsoreness [of the horses], and the plunder they have gotten already, they would return again to attack the sons of Sa'd.