c poetry is by W.
Ahlwardt, 'Ueber Poesie und Poetik der Araber' (Gotha, 1856); of Arabic
metres, by G.W. Freytag, 'Darstellung der Arabischen Verkunst' (Bonn,
1830). Translations of Arabic poetry have been published by J.D.
Carlyle, 'Specimens of Arabic Poetry' (Cambridge, 1796); W.A. Clouston,
'Arabic Poetry' (Glasgow, 1881); C.J. Lyall, 'Translations of Ancient
Arabic Poetry' (London, 1885). The history of Arabic literature is given
in Th. Noeldeke's 'Beitraege zur Kenntniss der Poesie der Alten Araber'
(Hanover, 1864), and F.F. Arbuthnot's 'Arabic Authors' (London, 1890).

[Author's signature] Richard Gottheil

DESCRIPTION OF A MOUNTAIN STORM

From the most celebrated of the 'Mu 'allakat,' that of Imr-al-Kais, 'The
Wandering King': Translation of C.J. Lyall.

O friend, see the lightning there! it flickered and now is gone,
as though flashed a pair of hands in the pillar of crowned cloud.
Now, was it its blaze, or the lamps of a hermit that dwells alone,
and pours o'er the twisted wicks the oil from his slender cruse?
We sat there, my fellows and I, 'twixt Darij and al-Udhaib,
and gazed as the distance gloomed, and waited its oncoming.
The right of its mighty rain advanced over Katan's ridge;
the left of its trailing skirt swept Yadhbul and as-Sitar:
Then over Kutaifah's steep the flood of its onset drave,
and headlong before its storm the tall trees were borne to ground;
And the drift of its waters passed o'er the crags of al-Kanan,
and drave forth the white-legged deer from the refuge they
sought therein.
And Taima--it left not there the stem of a palm aloft,
nor ever a tower, save ours, firm built on the living rock.
And when first its misty shroud bore down upon Mount Thabir,
he stood like an ancient man in a gray-streaked mantle wrapt.
The clouds cast their burdens down on the broad plain of al-Ghabit,
as a trader from al-Yaman unfolds from the bales his store;
And the topmost crest, on the morrow, of al-Mujaimir's cairn,
was heaped with the flood-borne wrack, like wool on a distaff wound.

* * * * *

FROM THE 'MU 'ALLAKAT' OF ZUHEIR

A lament for the desertion, through a war, of his former home and the
haunts of his tribe; Translation of C. J. Lyall.

I

Are they of Umm Aufa's tents--these black lines t