Islamic poetry
THE mansion of Khaula is desolate, and the traces of it on the stony hills of Tahmed faintly shine, like the remains of blue figures painted on the back of a hand."
2. While I spoke thus to myself, my companions stopped their coursers by my side, and said, "Perish not through despair, but act with fortitude."
3. Ah, said I, the vehicles which bore away my fair one on the morning when the tribe of Malec departed, and their camels were traversing the banks of Deda, resembled large ships
4. Sailing from Aduli; or vessels of the merchant Ibn Yamin, which the mariner now turns obliquely, and now steers in a direct course;
5. Ships, which cleave the foaming waves with their prows, as a boy at his play divides with his hand the collected earth.
6. In that tribe was a lovely antelope, with black eyes, dark ruddy lips, and a beautiful neck, gracefully raised to crop the fresh berries of erac—a neck adorned with two strings of pearls and topazes.
7. She strays from her young, and feeds with the herd of roes in the tangled thicket, where she browses the edges of the wild fruit, and covers herself with a mantle of leaves.
8. She smiles, and displays her bright teeth, rising from their dark-coloured bases, like a privet-plant in full bloom, which pierces a bank of pure sand moistened with dew:
9. To her teeth the sun has imparted his brilliant water; but not to the part where they grow, which is sprinkled with lead-ore, while the ivory remains unspotted.
10. Her face appears to be wrapped in a veil of sunbeams; unblemished is her complexion, and her skin is without a wrinkle.
11. Such cares as this, whenever they oppress my soul, I dispel by taking adventurous journeys on a lean yet brisk camel, who runs with a quick pace both morning and evening;
12. Sure-footed, firm, and thin as the planks of a bier; whose course I hasten over long-trodden paths, variegated like a striped vest.
13. She rivals the swiftest camels, even of the noblest breed, and her hind-feet rapidly follow her fore-feet on the beaten way.
14. In the vernal season, she grazes on yon two hills among others of her race, whose teats are not yet filled with milk, and depastures the lawns, whose finest grass the gentle showers have made luxuriantly green.
15. She turns back at the sound of her rider's voice; and repels the caresses of a thick-haired russet stallion with the lash of her bushy tail,
16. Which appears as if the two wings of a large white eagle were transfixed by an awl to the bone, and hung waving round both her sides:
17. One while it lashes the place of him who rides hindmost on her; another while it plays round her teats, which are become wrinkled and flaccid like a leathern bag, their milk no longer distending them.
18. Her two haunches are plump, and compact as the two smooth valves of a lofty castle-gate.
19. Supple is her backbone: her ribs are like the strongest bows; and her neck is firmly raised on the well-connected vertebres.
20. The two cavities under her shoulders are spacious as two dens of beasts among the wild lotus plants; and stiff bows appear to be bent under her sinewy loins.
21. Her two thighs are exceedingly strong, and, when she moves, they diverge like two buckets carried from a well in the hands of a robust drawer of water.
22. Her joints are well knit, and her bones are solid, like a bridge of Grecian architecture, whose builder had vowed that he would enclose it with well-cemented bricks.
23. The hair under her chin is of a reddish hue: her back is muscular: she takes long yet quick steps with her hind-feet, and moves her fore-feet with agility;
24. She tosses them from her chest with the strength and swiftness of cables firmly pulled by a nervous arm; and her shoulders are bent like the rafters of a lofty dome:
25. She turns rapidly from the path: exceedingly swift is her pace; long is her head; and her shoulder-bones are strongly united to her sides.
26. The white and hollow marks of the cords, with which her burdens have been tied to her back, resemble pools of water on the smooth brow of a solid rock;
27. Marks which sometimes unite, and sometimes are distinct, like the gores of fine linen, which are sewed under the arms of a well-cut robe.
28. Long is her neck; and when she raises it with celerity, it resembles the stern of a ship floating aloft on the billowy Tigris.
29. Her skull is firm as an anvil; and the bones, which the sutures unite, are indented, and sharp as a file.
30. Her cheek is smooth and white as paper of Syria; and her lips, as soft as dyed leather of Yemen, exactly and smoothly cut.