Page:The Celebrated Romance of the Stealing of the Mare.djvu/36

 Set for a leader of men ; and mares were tethered round it, And dromedaries trained as it were for a distant riding ; And hard beside a tent of silk, a fair refreshment To the eyes as rain on the hills, the blest abode of women. And next in a lofty place, set on a windy platform. As it were a fortress in size, the booth of the great council, Wonderful in its spread, its length full sixty paces, — And tears came to my eyes, for none in the world was like it. — And all around were slaves. And at the tent ropes standing Of a house of woven silk of the eighty there together, I saw a damsel proud, the Agheyli Jaber*s daughter : Fifty attendants hers, mute girls who speak by signals. And Aha from afar with her fair eyes beheld me. And sent a maid to my help, of the maids that stood around her : Running she came to me, while her anklets rang and clattered, And her fair face shone like light, bent forward in her running, Shone like a moon in the dark, dividing her hair's blackness. And I prepared my words as a talker doth who is cunning. Eut she began, "O Sheykh of the Arabs, whence and whither?