Ode X: Thou hast left Umamah — a

Thou hast left Umamah — a long leaving: and a heavy burthen has absence loaded on thee ;

And thou hast been haunted, in spite of her distance, by her phantom coming nightly — and little thy gain !

And by the glance of one full of love's pain, whensoever the caravans pass on their way.

She came to us asking what was our grief: we told her that we had resolved on departing;

And I said to her — 'Thou hast been — well thou knowest ! — since our folk halted here, disdainful of us'.

Then her eyes burst forth with a sudden shower, that wetted her smooth long cheek as it fell;

And the promised favour she granted me was but to turn her face away with empty words !

She pleaded that every man every day prepares for himself some new change of mood.

Now is it as though distance had never become nearness, nor ever she had pitched tent with a folk dwelling all together.

Then I brought up to the saddle a camel hard as a wild ass, stout and sturdy, ready to face toil, swift of pace,

Strongly built throughout her frame, compact in her joints, what time the gazelles lie folded together in their mid-day sleep.

A hump she has, covered with matted wool, its fat rising high, [so smooth and round that] the saddle-pad slips down from it.

She has been wandering at large in a year of good pasturage, and no slave has ever called a youngling to suck her teats.

She remains staid and quiet, watching thee with the outer corner of her eye, what time thou gatherest into thy hand the rein to mount her,

With an eye like the eye of the dealer-out of the gaming arrows, when he strives to outwit the players, intending some artful trick,

And an ear letting fall on either side drops of sweat, which sprinkles the rough woolly space behind, densely covered with hair,

And a breast broad like a highway, [showing so clearly the working of the muscles that] thou wouldst think there was upon it a nappy blanket of goat's hair.

Then she passed over Kushub at dawn of day, and by the evening she was abreast of Arik :

She tramples on the roughest places of its rugged uplands, as a strong man, glorying, tramples on a fallen foe.

When she comes towards thee, thou wouldst say — 'A she-ostrich, ash-coloured, terrified, overtaking a tall male ostrich that hurries on before';

And if thou seest her from behind — ' A full-freighted ship, to which the wind has made subject a quick-travelling sail';

And if she presents her side, the man of skilled eye sees in her that which makes it easy for him to judge rightly of her merits :

An easily-moving fore-arm, with an active upper arm that hurries on, ' preceding a hind-leg that hurls itself in pursuit,

And curved ribs that [as it were] butt at one another under her spine, joined to which she has in front a sturdy, thick fore-part.

She outstrips all the other riding camels along the road, when the tribe make a journey through the long night:

Her fore-legs, when she travels swiftly on — while [the other camels] had gone off the road [through unsteadiness], and then kept closely to it [through weariness] —

Move like the arms of a swimmer who has fallen into a deep pool, whom Death has all but overtaken.

I have been told that my people — but I have not yet met them — have renewed their encampment at Dhu Shuwais;

And if I should perish without attaining to them, then carry this message to the foremost men of Sahm:

'.Your people have been offered the choice of two things, and in both they have set before you a manifest wrong —

'A life of shame, or war with friends— either course I count a poisonous food ;

'And if it must be that ye choose one of the twain, then march ye to death with a noble tread !

' Sit not still while strength is in you : Time will come soon enough to devour your strength;

'And raise high the blaze of War's fire when once it is kindled, with long lances and stallion steeds,

'And double mail-coats of David's weaving — see how the sharp swords ring as they smite them !

'Verily ye and the giving of hostages, when War has brought great things to pass,

'Are like the robe of the Son of Bid, with which he protected his people, and stopped the road to those that travelled along it.'