Ode CIX: O thou protector of Nadlah, the

O thou protector of Nadlah, the time, truly, has come for thee to bestir thyself in defence of thy friend among the sons of Hidm !

Ye that range yourselves one to another to shelter Nadlah — ugly your faces in that chain of protecting hands !

And the Sons of Rawahah look on, what time the assembly gaze at him with their thick fleshy noses :

Except Abu Thauban — in sooth Abu Thauban is not dumb or tongue-tied —

'Amr son of 'Abdallah — verily he is a man who holds himself aloof from reviling and foul abuse.

Give me not to drink if I bring not on Ghatafan by night the marching of a mighty and numberless host,

Clangorous when [its enemies] beset its companies on both flanks, like a lofty mass of cloud on the day of the setting-in of the heavy autumnal rain —

A host so vast that the wide plain is too strait for it, huge, with a vanguard whose dust floats hither and thither :

They shout the name of Nadlah as they thrust with the spears, bestriding short-haired steeds that spring with the gait of mountain goats —

All tall steeds and mares firmly knit, like a well-twisted cable, some bay, some black —

Until I requite upon 'Abs the wickedness they wrought with the worst that such a crime deserves.

O Nadlah ! [Alas] for the stranger guest, for the man under covenant who / is wronged, and for him who bears the burthen of heavy debt !

Who now will succour the shag-pate wretch who cannot sleep for hunger, the starveling clad in worn-out rags, lean as the camel tied to die at its master's grave ?