Ode XXXIV: Seest thou not that the tribe

Seest thou not that the tribe has been sundered by the continuous journeying in different directions which they began on the day of the plain of al-Ghamlm —

Journeying which has carried them far from our way, and has stirred up in us the thrill of longing ? Verily happenings stir the hearts !

Mine eyes streamed not until, as the morning dawned, the camels were loaded up with their household gear, and the litters were girded on,

And until I beheld how the south-wind swept over the empty spaces where the tribe had dwelt, raising high into air the dust, with a train of dust behind.

And there on that morning was one glad at thy departing, full of delight— and one who wept over the dwelling-places with bitter sobs.

And if Hind be a garden fenced round by barriers, sometimes hopelessness masters a man, and he becomes content therewith.

Now Hind dwells, having taken up her fixed abode, in ar-Ranqa, and for me it is time that I see the towers of Damascus ;

And I have been given in exchange for her the land of the wormwood, while she has been given the water-courses of al-Matall, with their sakhbar-trees and clumps of bamboos ;

And between us are interposed the mountains of Hauran and al-Qunn, and ridges of bare sand wherein is intense heat.

And there is no attaining to her, except that our distance be brought near by means of swift young camels that pull upon the reins, bent with leanness,

And a she-camel whose teeth are full-grown, of the race of Jadilah, round whose belly are bound a strap and a plaited girth :

She has legs nimble to speed along, long as though they were tent-poles of pine-wood, with wide spaces between ;

When she comes down into the hard rugged ground, her pads, wounded and bleeding, constrain themselves to bear her onwards.

Yea, many the desert, dry and dusty to the furthest bound, where the mirage floats over the hillocks before the noon-tide, and comes and goes,

Have I traversed, what time the wildings, pasturing the wilderness without coming down to water, entering into their holes clothe themselves with the shadow of the arta-trees.

By the life of the Daughter of the Murrite ! I am not one who cries out in pain when the changes of fortune beset him ;

t And the mother of my two boys knows well that I am one who rises to serve the guest when others are too drowsy to do so, and goes forth in the night to welcome him in ;

And that I buy meat at a high price when it is uncooked [to feast there-with the hungry], while I am of those who hold the flesh cheap when it is cooked [by dealing it out to all who have need],

What time the suckling mother, bent double with leanness, is pressed in the night by her babe with its two poor strings of shells round its neck, which clings, worrying her for milk, to her dry breast ;

And there was no scantiness of anything, and my openhandedness and attention made the child's mother happy.

When the guests look anxiously about for one to deal out to them hospitality, there furnishes entertainment for me a she-camel whose young dies soon after birth in the wintertime, or one which casts her young prematurely —

A she-camel as big as a male : on my sword from the bone of her leg [where I have houghed her] is dried blood which I have not wiped away, and scratches ;

In every halting-place in the middle parts of the wilderness the saddles of mais-wood are seen to be carrying the gear [of other camels slaughtered by me to feed my companions].