Ode XCVI: Ramah and its hill no longer

Ramah and its hill no longer bear traces of Sulaima, and her journeyings and their divergencies have carried her far away from thee ;

There has changed her that which has changed men before her : she is gone, and the longings of my heart seek her out.

Has it not reached her that tears flow ceaselessly from an eye whose Beloved visits it only in dreams —

[Dropping] like the dripping of well-water from [the labour of] a camel of Jurash over seed-beds, whose great water-skins gush forth into the channels—

[A camel] drawing a great water-bag by a rope of four strands over a cross-piece, kept straight by a pulley with suspending irons the orifices of which creak as it works?

She went by the upland road — no other objective had she than Muhajjar and the Harrah of Laila, its level spaces and its black lava rocks.

She saw me with my temples bald and smooth as the place where the sand-grouse lays : but their baldness is not due to a captor who showed grace in view of ransom to be paid having cut away the locks.

We answered the sons of Sa'd of Dabbah when they called to us for help : and a wonderful friend were he who when called on did not answer !

It came about that, whenever we cried ' Hawazin, advance in the straight road ! ' — their orator hit not the mark aright.

From al-Mala we gripped them with the grip of the biting she-camel, with a gleaming [body of horse] the scouts of which do not walk under coverts ;

And when they saw us in an-Nisar as though we were high-reaching clouds brought by the Pleiades, driven on before the south-wind,

Then were they like a woman boiling cream in a pot who, when it boils up, knows not what to do, whether to take it off the fire [before it is cooked] and so incur blame, or to let the butter be melted [and thus perhaps be lost].

We cut their forces in twain — one half was in al-Yamamah, while the other took the way of Autas, where their dogs howled [at their strange surroundings].

We drove them as we would from place to place, as bitches carry about their puppies, on every track stretching like a scar in the desert, with its dust rising high in air.

We stripped the bark off them as a man peels staves, and they reached a state in which the despoiled one whimpers over his misery—

From early morning until the night came between us and them, and weariness overtook the running of our most enduring steeds.

Our cavalry singled out Qushair, and went straight for them, as the well straightens out the ropes of the buckets that ply therein.

Whensoever we overtook any band of their horsemen, we remembered their rancour and their wrongs done against us, [and dealt bloodily with them] !

Ye Sons of 'Amir! ye know how we left your women — snatched off captive in haste, with their hinder-parts bleeding [from the roughness of the cushion-less saddles] :

Yea, our sutlers and hirelings had their will with white women fair as statues, with their bosoms perfumed with saffron.

Your suckling women passed the night [hid away] on a hill, with their hearts trembling with fear of that which the darkness might hide.

Leave alone the pastures of the Shlqani ! both of them belong to us, what time wars blaze up among Red Mudar !