Page:The Celebrated Romance of the Stealing of the Mare.djvu/52

 Forth by the dales I rode and travelled in my yearning,

Till to my gladdened eyes behold, the fount Ridaa,

And at the waterside the damsels and the daughters,

Alia with all her band. And hence my earliest trouble.

For I saw them there unseen, this goodly band of damsels,

Dark, with their hair unbound, and those fair moons, their faces,

(For some were as crescent moons, some half moons and some full moons,)

With brows divinely knit for their sad lovers* dooming,

And eyes aflame to smite and pierce his soul like lances,

And red cheeks, every one a rosebud newly blossomed,

And noses curved and keen and finely shaped as sabres,

Sabres upheld aloft in the skilled hands of swordsmen,

And mouths like lover's knots, and teeth agleam like jewels,

And necks, the wild roe's neck, on lavender new pastured

And shih and all the herbs, the sweetest of the desert.

By this was I undone. And one of the maidens saw me,

Sprang like a fawn in fear, and called to her companions,

'Alia! Ho, ye damsels, daughters of the great ones!

Here is one watching us, one spying in the desert/

And all looked up and saw where I stood plain, unhidden.

And Alia cursing, cried, c O base son of perdition,

Evil be on thy head/ And they called to her and questioned

'Who, then, is this bold man, hath dared be thus familiar