Ode VI: There comes to him time after

There comes to him time after time the nightly vision of Sulaima, even as the creditor besets with his importunities his debtor.

If she brings with her that which she knows [i. e. her love in exchange for mine] — then verily — God be praised ! — I am one who can give love for love, and also one who can cut the bond if love wanes.

Yea, many the meadow through which one wades [as through a pool], wherein the dust-coloured [ostriches] lay their eggs — the greenery of it has been forbidden to men, and the growth is lush and high —

Have I visited in the morning, carried hither and thither by a swimming mare, the splinters of the frogs of whose hoofs are as hard as date-stones fully ripe:

One of those mares that look about them on this side and that [through sprightliness], what time the sweat has soaked the saddle-girth.

When the girth [under stress of galloping] slips back to a place just in front of her short ribs, the place where a woman's girdle goes round her waist,

Sometimes it strikes against the points of her teats, and sometimes the galloping brings it back to its proper place and it is straight again.

She is a bay, of no doubtful hue, but the colour of sirf into which the hide to be dyed has been plunged a second time.

Three of her legs are like one another in having a white ring round the pastern, while one leg is all of one colour.

It seems as though on them [the three legs] were bands of purest silver, such as that from which are made earrings uplifted by a dainty ear.

She is shielded by charms so that she takes no hurt [from an evil eye], and amulets are tied on to her neck-gear.

And when we go hunting, she puts within our power the loudly-braying wild-ass, whom the lush herbage has made as strong as a demon,

With the swoop of an eagle of 'Ardah which has been stirred by the sight, in Dhu-d-Dumran, of a hare that trips with short steps.