Page:The Celebrated Romance of the Stealing of the Mare.djvu/42

 Ha! the mare, what is she that I should wish for or win her?

Never in all my days have I bent my leg to a saddle,

Being of those unskilled, and little apt in the learning."

He spoke, and rose to go in anger, he the dark one;

And she too to the camp, to her own tribe and people,

Even to Alia's tent. But presently Salame

Passed on his way in doubt and fear and consternation,

Thinking of those her words, hers with the plaited tresses,

And, "O thou," to himself he said, "thou innocent-minded

Thou forsooth the father of wiles, the old deceiver!

How hath she laid thee bare and cozened thy beguiling,

Reading all thy thought and making plain thy plottings!

And she is gone from thee, and thou art alone unfriended,

A stranger among foes, and who shall give thee shelter?"

Then on his musing fell the depth of night and of darkness,

And still Salame pondered grieving his black fortune.

And when it was fully night he cast his eyes in a circle,

Where he might win a lodging in the wide, naked desert.

And he spoke again to himself, cc Salame, thou the Hejazi,

Now is thy hour to do, the occasion of thy cunning,

For well hath the poet sung, he, Ibn Arus the singer,