Ode XXVI: Is the tie to Khaulah still

Is the tie to Khaulah still subsisting now that she and thou are parted ? or art thou, far away from her, occupied with some other love ?

Khuwailah dwells now in an abode where she is neighbour to the folk of al-Mada'in, and therein is the cock and the elephant ;

[Her people] smite the heads of the Persians there in the open plain : of them are knights not wanting in weapons nor unskilled in the rider's art.

And there has stolen through thy heart, from the return of thoughts of her, a subtle languor of love, and a sense of being bound by a pledge—

A languor like the languor of one fever-stricken : when it quits him on a day, the lingering traces of it come back upon him again by night.

There are days belonging to loved ones on which thy memory dwells, and before the day of parting there is a foreboding of distance to come.

She who has left the Desert and pitched her tent in the gathering-place of the Army — Oblivion has passed over her love and caused it to vanish away.

Turn away then from her, and let her not distract thee from business : verily love-longing, after grey hairs have come, is but to wander astray !

[Betake thyself] to a sturdy she-camel, hard as a smith's anvil, strong and bulky — in spite of weariness she has a steady trot and amble—

Firm as a rock : she signals, when she is urged along, with a tail like the raceme of a date-palm, on which there remain yet some puny dates ungathered :

Long-backed, stuck [as it were] all over with lumps of flesh; super-abundance of sprightliness takes possession of her when all the other easy-paced camels are worn out with weariness ;

Her run slackens not, while there controls it the bordered rein, made of strips of leather tanned with gharf, close-plaited.

Whenas the journeying of the party is toilsome along beaten tracks that look like the streaks of palm-mats woven in the mountains of al-Yaman—

A plain way, round which thou mayst see the eggs of the sand-grouse strewn here and there, as though they were glass bottles in the hollows where they lie —

Glass bottles filled with oil and bare of covering, without any sheaths upon them of woven palm-leaves ;

And in the water-skins of the party little water is left, and they are pressing on, while in the small water-bags there remain only a few muddy drops ;

And the pale-coloured camels are urged to the utmost of their strength, being belaboured, some with the camel-stick, others with the rider's heels,

While others [, being spent,] are led along gently, their saddles laden upon other beasts, and their furniture distributed between the rest of the party : —

Then there guides the caravan a leading she-camel, not neglectful of the way, what time the rugged uplands and the mile-pillars are kindled in the blazing heat —

One that shakes [through briskness] as she goes along, that holds high her head, quick of pace : her elbows are curved so as to stand well away from her sides :

Of full strength — the nail of her foot cuts cleanly into the earth, as the knife of the shoemaker cuts cleanly into the skin of leather dyed red with sirf;

She throws her foot forward now, and now brings it back again ; and its edge is notched from the continual spring of her pace.

Thou mayst see the stones fly scattered away from her feet, like as the sieves separate and scatter the worthless parts of the grain.

On the day that she comes down to the water, after drinking none for three days, she is like a wandering wild bull with divergent horns, and eyes rimmed with a circle of kuhl,

Clad [as it were] in a new white shirt over his natural colour, with legs that seem to have on them drawers of striped khal,

Marked with brownish black in the face, on his pasterns anklets of white, and above that as far as his hocks black rings.

There came upon him in the morning a hunter who runs with his dogs, burnt brown as though he were baked with the heat of the sun ;

He has at home a railing wife, shock-headed, naked, in her bosom a lean babe like a monkey.

He calls by name his trained dogs, all alike in appearance — famished hounds that will not hang back when they get an opening to seize the prey :

They follow a shock-headed master, like a wolf, active and wiry, who goes along before them about a lance's length in front.

He gathers the dogs together for a little, then lets them loose on the bull — black dogs are they, with their ears scratched and torn ;

Then fear fixes itself in the pupil of the bull's keen-sighted eye — an eye that had no need of collyrium to clear it of dust ;

Then he turned to one side, and sped away, and they turned with him : each one of them flies, sticking close to him, [with their limbs straightened out] as though from leanness they were javelins.

Then he shook himself, [scorning flight,] casting forward a pair of horns ripe and hard — wading through the pools of death, depending on himself alone—

A pair, both alike, with their knots close together, and in their sides and points smoothness and length ;

Each of them he intends to use in the press of fight : verily, on the morning of fear a man looks to his weapons !

He deals thrusts as he finds a chance, not driving them home, in a flurried way, with a long horn whose root projects forth from the suture of his skull ;

Until, when he had planted by his thrusts sore pain in their breasts, and his horn had been thoroughly drenched with the blood of their entrails,

He turned and departed, and they were left lying where they had beset him, the most of them mangled with bleeding wounds, and one killed outright :

While he, when his swift going has brought his full strength into play, is like a sword unsheathed, whose surface skilful hands have polished fair.

Fronting the wind he flies, keeping stedfast on his course, with his tongue hanging out on the left side of his mouth.

He throws up the dust [as he runs] with eight toes on four legs, whose touch on the ground is scarcely perceptible —

[Legs] at the back of which, on one side, are horny excrescences that seem as though they were warts on the back sinews of the shank.

There cleaves to him on either side a cloud of dust which he raises as he gallops, and the space between his legs is filled with stones which he dashes up from the gravelly ground.

Yea, and many the drinking-place, stinking from long disuse, with camels' dung defiling its depths, covered with a scum of rubbish swept into it by the wind,

Which looks, in the buckets of my companions when they draw thereout, as though it were the remains of a fat sheep's tail melted down in the pot—

To which I have brought my party down to drink, what time drowsiness had taken possession of them ; and I bade them, when they had drunk fully of its water, to take rest in the noon-tide,

Through the extremity of the heat, till they should start again in the evening : there was a rent in the waterskin that wanted mending, and the skin must be thoroughly soaked.

When we halted there, we raised above us [on our spears] as a shelter our sheets, and the cauldrons bubbled with meat being cooked for the party—

[Meat], some dark-red, some red mottled with white which the cook had not thoroughly cooked : as soon as the boiling had changed its colour somewhat, it was taken and devoured.

Then we turned to our short-haired steeds, branded with our device, and their manes were the napkins with which we wiped our hands.

Then we started again on our journey, riding on pale-coloured camels, with their legs bound round with strips of leather [that kept on their shoes], the jaded and stumbling of which were brought along by gentle leading, rubbing with butter and [camels'] dung, and covering the sore part with a shoe.

They walk heavily with water in broad waterskins provided with loops, some of which are hung behind the saddles of the riders, and others slung two and two across the camels' backs.

We hope for the mercies of a Lord whose bounty is never failing : all good things are in His keeping, and through Him they come to men —

A Lord who has given us possessions to hold as our own ; and all things which God gives to men are a trust to be worthily used ;

And a man labours for an end to which he does not attain ; and Life is a withholding, and an anxiety, and a hope.

And many the remote pasture, watered copiously in Safar by the first rain of winter, with showers that came upon it by night, and fell in heavy drops,

Where the wild creatures, the ash-coloured ostriches and the large-eyed antelope with their younglings, heard not a sound to stir their fear,

And where the young of the troops of ostriches were like young lambs, [happy and playful,] and mixed with them older birds, and others older still that had not yet laid eggs—

I have scattered the wildings from it in affright, for all they were so peaceful, as though they were camels driven off in a foray made at early dawn,

Mounted on a steed lean of face like a wolf, stripped for speed, noble of race by sire and dam, perfect both in beauty and height,

Compact and full in the muscles of the back, bare of flesh in the shanks — his flesh has been taken down by being constantly ridden in the cool of the morning and the evening ;

The small white star on his forehead, when he stands upright, resembles hoary hair slightly dyed with hinna and then washed.

When his master calls on him by name among a thousand others, his wiry compact shanks, and his hoofs like hammers of stone, carry him forth far in front of them all.

He reaches out far with his legs, then bends them inwards — he is master of both kinds : right quickly does he draw them together when they have been stretched out at full length in the gallop.

And oft-times have I gone forth at dawn, when the limb of the sun was bursting forth, while there was still over it a covering from the blackness of night,

What time the cock stood forth at the whitening day, and challenged some one of his folk — and a weaponless people are they ! —

To the vintners' booths, while there seconded me in seeking the delight of the wine one loose in his waistcloth, keen like a sword-point, alert and nimble,

Generous-handed — when things are grave, he acts with gravity : one who mingles sport with pleasure, a rover in search of delight.

Then we reclined on carpets over which were spread embroidered rugs most sumptuous, with work of many colours :

Thereon were to see the pictures of things manifold — fowls of all kinds, and lions lurking within the brake ;

In a house four-square, which its builders had plastered and beautified, wherein were lamps with twisted wicks that lit up the night.

By us was an amphora with the seal broken off, like the runnel of a cistern-head which has been broken down by the trampling of the press of camels coming to drink, and by it a water-skin with its spout tied up to its neck,

And a flagon of shining [silver], with its top bound round, above the plaster that stopped it, with a wreath of sweet basil ;

Cooled was the wine by mixing with water, and between the amphora and the flagon was a mixing-bowl, like the middle of a wild-ass, pierced with a hole [from which to pour the wine when mixed] ;

And the flagon was full, overfl owing with foam atop, and a roast quarter of a sheep lay by, transfixed with a spit ;

Busy therewith was a servant, active, his garments girt up, above our table, and in a wooden dish were all kinds of spicery.

Then did I quaff the tawny fiery wine, tapped now for the first time, sweetest of drinks — such delights bring lightness into life !

Pure it was, yet soft as though it had been mixed ; and sometimes there pleased us a song, brilliant like painters' work set off with gold, borne about [by men for its excellence] ;

A long-necked songstress, friendly in her manners, trilled out its final vowels : in her voice was a clear enunciation which charmed our company as she sang ;

She spent the morning giving us delight, and we requited her with gifts : we cast upon her [costly] mantles of burd, and even our shirts.