her long be the ropes that bind them, or little.
Lone is 'Amir, and naught is left of her goodness,
in the meadows of al-A'raf, but her dwellings--
Ruined shadows of tents and penfolds and shelters,
bough from bough rent, and spoiled by wind and by weather.
Gone is 'Amir, her ancients gone, all the wisest:
none remain but a folk whose war-mares are fillies,
Yet they slay them in every breach in our rampart--
yea, and they that bestride them, true-hearted helpers,
They contemn not their kin when change comes upon them,
Nor do we scorn the ties of blood and of succor.
--Now on 'Amir be peace, and praises, and blessing,
wherever be on earth her way--or her halting!

[Footnote 1: The five names foregoing are those of mountains.]

A FAIR LADY

From the 'Mu 'allakat of Antara': Translation of E.H. Palmer

'Twas then her beauties first enslaved my heart--
Those glittering pearls and ruby lips, whose kiss
Was sweeter far than honey to the taste.
As when the merchant opes a precious box
Of perfume, such an odor from her breath
Comes toward me, harbinger of her approach;
Or like an untouched meadow, where the rain
Hath fallen freshly on the fragrant herbs
That carpet all its pure untrodden soil:
A meadow where the fragrant rain-drops fall
Like coins of silver in the quiet pools,
And irrigate it with perpetual streams;
A meadow where the sportive insects hum,
Like listless topers singing o'er their cups,
And ply their forelegs, like a man who tries
With maimed hand to use the flint and steel.

THE DEATH OF 'ABDALLAH

AND WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS

From the original poem of Duraid, son of as-Simmah, of Jusharn:
Translation of C.J. Lyall.

I warned them both, 'Arid, and the men who went 'Arid's way--
the house of the Black Mother: yea, ye are all my witnesses,
I said to them: "Think--even now, two thousand are on your track,
all laden with sword and spear, their captains in Persian mail!"
But when they would hearken not, I followed their road, though I
knew well they were fools, and that I walked not in Wisdom's way.
For am not I but one of the Ghaziyah? and if they err
I err with my house; and if the Ghaziyah go right, so I.
I read them my rede, one day, at Mun'araj al-Liwa: