Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/189

 There are many other aspects of clan literature to which we should have gladly given even passing attention. We might have discussed, for example, the treatment of animals in early poetry, such as that of the camel, in the Moʾallaqah of Lebid, taking refuge "in the hollow trunk of a tree with lofty branches standing apart on the skirts of the sandhills," while overhead is a starless night of rain; or that of the wild asses, in the same poem, raising as they gallop along "a train of dust with shadows flitting like the smoke of a blazing fire." But these and many other aspects of early poetry we must leave untouched. We have merely thrown out a few hints which have cost no little study, however small their value; and we shall be content if the path of our inquiries is honestly pursued, and not at all offended if real study discovers a good deal to be corrected even in this little glimpse of a vast subject.