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| THE BLACK-EYED children of the Desert drove | |
| Their flocks together at the set of sun. | |
| The tents were pitched: the weary camels bent | |
| Their suppliant necks, and knelt upon the sand; | |
| The hunters quartered by the kindled fires | 5 |
| The wild boars of the Tigris they had slain, | |
| And all the stir and sound of evening ran | |
| Throughout the Shammar camp. The dewy air | |
| Bore its full burden of confused delight | |
| Across the flowery plain, and while, afar, | 10 |
| The snows of Koordish mountains in the ray | |
| Flashed roseate amber, Nimroud’s ancient mound | |
| Rose broad and black against the burning West. | |
| The shadows deepened, and the stars came out | |
| Sparkling in violet ether; one by one | 15 |
| Glimmered the ruddy camp-fires on the plain, | |
| And shapes of steed and horseman moved among | |
| The dusky tents with shout and jostling cry, | |
| And neigh and restless prancing. Children ran | |
| To hold the thongs, while every rider drove | 20 |
| His quivering spear in the earth, and by his door | |
| Tethered the horse he loved. In midst of all | |
| Stood Shammeriyah, whom they dared not touch,— | |
| The foal of wondrous Kubleh, to the Sheik | |
| A dearer wealth than all his Georgian girls. | 25 |
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| But when their meal was o’er,—when the red fires | |
| Blazed brighter, and the dogs no longer bayed,— | |
| When Shammar hunters with the boys sat down | |
| To cleanse their bloody knives, came Alimàr, | |
| The poet of the tribe, whose songs of love | 30 |
| Are sweeter than Bassora’s nightingales,— | |
| Whose songs of war can fire the Arab blood | |
| Like war itself: who knows not Alimàr? | |
| Then asked the men: “O poet, sing of Kubleh!” | |
| And boys laid down the knives half burnished, saying, | 35 |
| “Tell us of Kubleh, whom we never saw,— | |
| Of wondrous Kubleh!” Closer flocked the group | |
| With eager eyes about the flickering fire, | |
| While Alimàr, beneath the Assyrian stars, | |
Sang to the listening Arabs:
“God is great! | 40 |
| O Arabs, never yet since Mahmoud rode | |
| The sands of Yemen, and by Mecca’s gate | |
| The wingéd steed bestrode, whose mane of fire | |
| Blazed up the zenith, when, by Allah called, | |
| He bore the Prophet to the walls of heaven, | 45 |
| Was like to Kubleh, Sofuk’s wondrous mare: | |
| Not all the milk-white barbs, whose hoofs dashed flame | |
| In Bagdad’s stables from the marble floor— | |
| Who, swathed in purple housings, pranced in state | |
| The gay bazaars, by great Al-Raschid backed: | 50 |
| Not the wild charger of Mongolian breed | |
| That went o’er half the world with Tamerlane: | |
| Nor yet those flying coursers, long ago | |
| From Ormuz brought by swarthy Indian grooms | |
| To Persia’s kings—the foals of sacred mares, | 55 |
| Sired by the fiery stallions of the sea! | |
| |
| “Who ever told, in all the Desert Land, | |
| The many deeds of Kubleh? Who can tell | |
| Whence came she, whence her like shall come again? | |
| O Arabs, like a tale of Scherezade | 60 |
| Heard in the camp, when javelin shafts are tried | |
| On the hot eve of battle, is her story. | |
| |
| “Far in the Southern sands, the hunters say, | |
| Did Sofuk find her, by a lonely palm. | |
| The well had dried; her fierce, impatient eye | 65 |
| Glared red and sunken, and her slight young limbs | |
| Were lean with thirst. He checked his camel’s pace, | |
| And while it knelt, untied the water-skin, | |
| And when the wild mare drank, she followed him. | |
| Thence none but Sofuk might the saddle gird | 70 |
| Upon her back, or clasp the brazen gear | |
| About her shining head, that brooked no curb | |
| From even him; for she, alike, was royal. | |
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| “Her form was lighter, in its shifting grace, | |
| Than some impassioned Almée’s, when the dance | 75 |
| Unbinds her scarf, and golden anklets gleam | |
| Through floating drapery, on the buoyant air. | |
| Her light, free head was ever held aloft: | |
| Between her slender and transparent ears | |
| The silken forelock tossed; her nostril’s arch, | 80 |
| Thin-drawn, in proud and pliant beauty spread, | |
| Snuffing the desert winds. Her glossy neck | |
| Curved to the shoulder like an eagle’s wing, | |
| And all her matchless lines of flank and limb | |
| Seemed fashioned from the flying shapes of air | 85 |
| By hands of lightning. When the war-shouts rang | |
| From tent to tent, her keen and restless eye | |
| Shone like a blood-red ruby, and her neigh | |
| Rang wild and sharp above the clash of spears. | |
| |
| “The tribes of Tigris and the Desert knew her: | 90 |
| 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. | 95 |
| Lithe as the dark-eyed Syrian gazelle, | |
| O’er ledge and chasm and barren steep, amid | |
| The Sindjar hills, she ran the wild ass down. | |
| Through many a battle’s thickest brunt she stormed, | |
| Reeking with sweat and dust, and fetlock deep | 100 |
| 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. | 105 |
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| “The tribes of Taurus and the Caspian knew her: | |
| The Georgian chiefs have heard her trumpet-neigh | |
| Before the walls of Tiflis. Pines that grow | |
| On ancient Caucasus have harbored her, | |
| Sleeping by Sofuk, in their spicy gloom. | 110 |
| 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! | |
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| “And Sofuk loved her. She was more to him | 115 |
| Than all his snowy-bosomed odalisques. | |
| For many years, beside his tent she stood, | |
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. | 120 |
| 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, | 125 |
| 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 | 130 |
| 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 | 135 |
| 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 distant tents arose, | 140 |
| 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 | 145 |
| Met his, and with a shuddering gasp she died. | |
| Then like a child’s 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 | 150 |
| 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!” | 155 |
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