Ode XCVIII: Ah, our partners have departed and

Ah, our partners have departed and cannot be reached, and thy heart is in the keeping of the ladies as they journey away !

The drivers make their way with them towards the waters of Nakhl, and they turn aside from the twin peaks of Aban.

I question my companion — and yet I think that I can myself see clearly whither the ladies are taking their way :

I fear lest the Sons of 'Uqail should depart with my Beloved one : and verily justified is fear !

Therefore hardly did I turn my eyes away from them in Qaniyah, what time the day had risen high.

In the night they came upon Arum and Shabah, with Ti'ar to the left thereof:

In the litters were girls like gazelles of Asnumah resting in their holes, the coverts too short to hide them fully.

As they smile, their lips part to show a row of camomile-flowers, washed bright by rain after a night-travelling cloud has passed over them.

And among the dames in the litters is one kind and playful, whose people are making for their own land and have started on their way—

One of those nurtured far from all hardship ; her dwelling-places have been al-Qasimah and al-Uwar ;

Her diet is milk slightly soured, flowing to her in abundance, and pure milk what time the milch-camels are sent forth [to bring in grain] ;

She is plump where the anklets go round, soft and tender, and in her flanks and belly is slenderness ;

Heavy are her after-parts whenever she essays to rise, and when she hastens, she is soon out of breath.

Then I passed the night wakeful, without sleep, as though strong wine were coursing through my joints,

Watching in the heavens the Bearers of the Bier, as they revolve like the moving on of a herd of wild kine ;

And the Pleiads incline to setting after the first part of night is spent, while Capella stands out as their neighbour.

Help, O ye people, for the man oppressed with misery by the slow length of Time, for his durance has lasted long !

Yea, if distant regions have taken away from us the fair ones of 'Uqail, and the hearts which they carry away captive with them,

Yet, until War turned us away one from the other, we and they had aforetime many days together that were but too short—

The nights when I paid no heed to him that would hold me back, and my waist-wrapper flowed down over my ankles,

And I disobeyed him that chid me, and I achieved delight, and vexed, by my visits, one stirred by jealousy.

But when we saw that the men had become our enemies, with no opening left to agreement between them [and us],

Our vanguard moved on, until we pitched camp in a land which Nizar had placed under a ban among themselves ;

And Tayyi' of the twin mountains kindled a war from the pain of which distant Suhar shrieked out.

They blocked the passes when they saw us coming : but creeping into their burrows did not save them from us.

And the tribe, the tribe of the sons of Subai', dwelt in Quradiyah, and we encompassed them about in a ring ;

And 'Amr son of 'Amr counselled his people not to fight — like a man who should cut off his own nose while he had still power to defend himself :

At Dhat Kahf they offered peace : but the taste of it to them is as bitter as sola' or pitch.

And the Ribab fled away to the Upland, and there remained not of them in Sarat or al-Hubs a single fire ;

Then they kept at a distance from us, though in sooth they thought us near, in a place where secret talk could be overheard.

[And fear of us brought Sa'd down to dwell in a land there where they used to grant protection, not to seek for it ;

[And the nearest tribes of 'Amir to us were 'Uqail in al-Miranah, and the Wibar.]

And the valley-bottoms were given, in exchange for Nurnair, the hoofs of steeds by which the dust was raised high in air.

And the tribe of the Sons of Kilab, though they fled, flight did not save them.

And Sulaim kept silence over their cud through fear of us, even as the ass keeps silence.

And as for Ashja' the man-woman, they turned tail like goats in ash-Shadha, bleating as they fled.

And we met not our deaths from Murrah, for they turned and took the road taken before them by Haribah, and went down into the lowland.

[Ancient glory and renown undimmed forbid the Sons of Khuzaimah to yield in aught :

[They excel all Ma'add in noble qualities, wheresoever they dwell, whithersoever they wend ;

[Faithful are they to their word when once it is pledged, and straight they turn to the gaming-arrows when men long for the smell of roast meat.]

Carry then a message, if thou touchest upon us in discourse, to Kinanah our brethren, wheresoever they be :

We take the place of those who have gone away, and we occupy at will the highest region of Najd when the rains fail [and famine comes],

With led mares, all pressing on, frisky, prancing out of the road in wantonness, made lean and spare by constant duty in places of danger and in distant raids,

Striving against the reins, unquiet as though in each of them there were a locust in a cloud of dust, yellow in colour,

Thrusting back with their elbows the girth, with the space between their teats stopped up with dust ;

Thou mayst see them gray from the sweat dried upon them — here a plentiful flow, there only a little ;

In every place of soft soil, wheresoever they wheeled about, is a well-liko footprint of the hoof with the sides crumbling in :

And with many a noble stallion the sheath of whose yard is like a folded wine-skin which the vintners have hung up on a peg :

The noise of his nostrils, when other horses cannot breathe freely, is like the working of a bellows borrowed from a blacksmith.

He is trained in the evenings, and is strong and sturdy, slender-waisted, tall on his legs, with no superfluous flesh.

What time other horses have their coats dishevelled and rough after a brisk gallop in the morning, his back is like a hard well-twisted cable.

All day, by the side of the riders on camels, he speeds swiftly along, the white blaze on his forehead looking like a woman's veil.

Yea, there will not save from disaster, when battle presses closely, aught but firm steadfastness in fight, or flight.