“The tribes of Tigris and the Desert knew her: Sofuk before the Shammar bands she bore To meet the dread Jebours, who waited not To bid her welcome; and the savage Koord, Chased from his bold irruption on the plain, Has seen her hoof prints in his mountain snow. Lithe as the dark-eyed Syrian gazelle, O’er ledge and chasm and barren steep amid The Sinjar hills, she ran the wild ass down. Through many a battle’s thickest brunt she stormed, Reeking with sweat and dust, and fetlock deep In curdling gore. When hot and lurid haze Stifled the crimson sun, she swept before The whirling sand-spout, till her gusty mane Flared in its vortex, while the camels lay Groaning and helpless on the fiery waste.
“The tribes of Taurus and the Caspian knew her: The Georgian chiefs have heard her trumpet neigh Before the walls of Teflis; pines that grow On ancient Caucasus have harbored her, Sleeping by Sofuk in their spicy gloom. The surf of Trebizond has bathed her flanks, When from the shore she saw the white-sailed bark That brought him home from Stamboul. Never yet, O Arabs, never yet was like to Kubleh!
“And Sofuk loved her. She was more to him Than all his snowy-bosomed odalisques. For many years she stood beside his tent, The glory of the tribe. At last she died. Died, while the fire was yet in all her limbs— Died for the life of Sofuk, whom she loved. The base Jebours—on whom be Allah’s curse!— Came on his path, when far from any camp, And would have slain him, but that Kubleh sprang Against the javelin points, and bore them down, And gained the open Desert. Wounded sore, She urged her light limbs into maddening speed And made the wind a laggard. On and on The red sand slid beneath her, and behind Whirled in a swift and cloudy turbulence, As when some star of Eblis, downward hurled By Allah’s bolt, sweeps with its burning hair The waste of darkness. On and on, the bleak, Bare ridges rose before her, came and passed, And every flying leap with fresher blood Her nostril stained, till Sofuk’s brow and breast Were flecked with crimson foam. He would have turned To save his treasure, though himself were lost, But Kubleh fiercely snapped the brazen rein. At last, when through her spent and quivering frame The sharp throes ran, our hundred tents arose, And with a neigh, whose shrill excess of joy O’ercame its agony, she stopped and fell. The Shammar men came round her as she lay, And Sofuk raised her head and held it close Against his breast. Her dull and glazing eye Met his, and with a shuddering gasp she died. Then like a child his bursting grief made way In passionate tears, and with him all the tribe Wept for the faithful mare. They dug her grave Amid Al-Hather’s marbles, where she lies Buried with ancient kings; and since that time Was never seen, and will not be again, O Arabs, though the world be doomed to live As many moons as count the desert sands, The like of wondrous Kubleh. God is great!”