Ode LIV: Are the abodes deaf, that they

Are the abodes deaf, that they give no answer ? Yet, if a tent-trace had the gift of speech, much could it tell.

The place is desolate, and the remnants of habitation like the tracery which a pen draws on the surface of a piece of leather.

'Tis the home of Asma, who has smitten my heart with love-sickness, and from mine eyes falls a stream of tears.

Void is it now : its plants are moist and rank, flowering freely its many-coloured herbs, growing close and thick.

Nay, but is not thy grief due to the departing litters that started in the morning, looking as though they were date-palms of Malham ?

About them floated odours of musk : the faces [of those who sat in them] were like bright gold, and the tips of their fingers were tinged pink as it were with 'anam.

Not all the chances of fortune brought to my heart such a pang as the death of my comrade who was left lying in Taghlam.

O Tha'labah, smiter of helmet-crests with the sword, leader of the kin when ways were dark around !

Go then ! may thine uncle's son be a sacrifice for thee ! Nought abides for ever but Shabah and Adam.

If any living thing could escape its fated day, then would escape the light-limbed mountain goat, banded with white streaks on its fore-legs,

Among the lofty peaks of 'Amayah, or where Khiyam lifts it up just short of the heaven.

Below it are the eggs of the white vulture, and above it the tall-shouldered mountain-summit, soaring high.

It roams thereupon wheresoever it will ; and if Destiny gave it but a respite, it might live until it grew decrepit :

But the guile of changeful Fortune wrought its destruction, so that it slipped from the mountain ledges, and was dashed to pieces.

No cause for grief is it to a man that he has missed length of days : there in the darkness before him is what he knows !

The sire perishes and the son remains behind — every one born of a father must one day be orphaned ;

And mothers get gain from their pains [of travail and tendance] — then comes the time when the barren is in as good a case as they.

What is our crime, that a king of the race of Jafnah, prudent, the humbler of his foes, led an attack ?

Noble of lineage on both sides, sprung from the 'Awutik and the Ghullaf, no weakling, not born a twin,

He waged war, and summoned to his aid the roving bands, who have no camels of their own to guard and defend :

Fair and white their faces, bare for all to see : the waters of their seas are no deceptive pool that sinks into the ground and disappears (?).

Then he swooped down like a hawk, while there went before him a host like the valley-bottoms of as-Shuraif, thick with trees, that devoured all things on its way ;

If they are wroth with aught, he is angry too therewith, [flashing forth in armour] as the spotted snake emerges from his slough.

But we are of thy mother's kin — by thy life ! and to the mother's brother are due respect and defence for his honour.

We are not like some folk whose daily food is earned by foul speech and the rending of reputations :

If they are in a state of plenty, they know not how to use their abundance well ; and if they are famine-stricken, then are they viler still—

In a year when thou seest the birds of their own accord enter the tents of men, seeking food to eat together with them,

And the smoke comes forth from the holes of the curtain [that veils the women] yellowish-brown like the colour of a pack-mule :

Until, when the earth was adorned afresh by the herbage, and the meadows were thick with greenery breaking forth in buds,

They tasted of repentance ; and if they had eaten of colocynth, they would not have noticed its bitterness.

But we are a folk to whom self-respect and nobleness appeal in the midst of our tribe ;

As for our possessions, we guard therewith our souls from all things that might bring near to them blame.

May God not put away from us the girding with weapons and the riding forth on raids, what time the host cries — ' Camels ! '

And the hurrying [of the servants, or of the entertainers] between two entertainments, when the evening falls, and the people have gathered themselves into groups !

Youth must come in the end to decay : envy not then thy brother that men say of him ' Wise is he [and old] ! '