Ode LXXV: She said — but she had

She said — but she had no mind to say aught unseemly — ' Stay ! but now hast thou reached to my hearing.'

Thou didst not recognize my face when thou didst scan its features ; and War is a destroyer that changes men through her pains.

Whoso tastes of War, finds her flavour bitter, and she stalls him upon rugged lying.

The helmet has rubbed the hair off my head, and I taste not of sleep save as a brief doze.

I labour on behalf of the more part of the Children of Malik : every man labours for the cause that is his !

I have made ready for my enemies a mail-coat of double weaving, full and ample, like a silvery pool in a clay bottom ;

I hook its skirts away from me by hanging them on the sheath of a shining sword, an Indian blade, clear of grain as salt, a keen cutter,

Of hard steel, sharp, its edge thirsting for blood (?) ; and [I carry] a curved shield, tawny, strong and hard—

The arms of a man accustomed to look Death in the face, wary, hard against Fortune's blows, not easily fluttered in spirit.

Prudence and firmness are better than dissimulation and weakness and a wavering mind.

The [full-grown] sand-grouse is not like her nestling, and the herded folk among men are not like the herdsman.

We lament not at slaughter, but we requite it upon our enemies, full measure, peck for peck ;

We repel them from us with a host full of alacrity, well furnished with captains and champions,

As though they were lions standing over their whelps, roaring in the thicket and the valley sides,

Until [our warfare] clears. And a flag we have in the midst of a host [of one stock], no medley of men drawn together.

Why askest thou not the cavalry, what time [War] girt up her skirts [for the battle], what was my slowness and my swiftness therein—

Whether I deal out freely among them my goods, in spite of my need of them, and whether I answer the call of him that shouts for help ?

I smite the crests of men's helmets with my blade on the day of battle, and my arm is not shortened in wielding it ;

And I traverse the wide desert wherein Death lurks, mounted on a white she-camel, greedy to go,

Full of various paces, strong as a male, her gear a saddle of al-Hirah and mats spread thereon.

She gives [good speed] in spite of weariness, and has no need of blows to make her go : safe is she from stumbling, no limper ;

It seems as though the sides of her saddle-pads were bound on the North-wind, sweeping along, tearing all things before it.

I deck her saddle with a rug from al-Hirah woven of divers colours, or made of patches sewn together.

With her do I accomplish my desires. But a man is the sport of a double-coloured hidden Fate !