Page:The L-poem of the Arabs.djvu/31



And I snuggle to the face of the earth, where it spreads out level, on a crooked back, built up by fleshless vertebral processes;

And on a scraggy arm, the articulations of which are, as it were, dice thrown by a player, they thus standing out erect.

The dusky chamois does wandering around me, as though they were maidens on whom are train-trailing mufflers;

And of evenings resting around me, as though I were, of the white fore-shanked ones, a long-horned chamois buck, with crooked hind legs, bound for the mountain slopes.

And in a night of wretchedness, when the owner burns his (very) bow, and his fragments (thereof), from which he could make arrows,

I tramp forth in the dark and the drizzle; my companions being heart-burning, and sleet, and rancour, and shivering.

Then I make widows of women, and I make orphans of children (in one tent); and I repeat (in other tents) as I began; the night being (still) most obscure.

And on the morrow, at Gumaysa, two parties of men arose to a sitting posture (conversing together) about me (in reality),—the one being questioned and the other inquiring.

And they said (to one another): “In the night our dogs growled; so we said: ‘Is a wolf prowling, or is it a hyaena cub skulking about?’

But it was nothing, only a slight sound; then they dozed off again; so we said: 'Was it a sandgrouse got scared, or did some hawk take fright?'

“Now, if it was one of the genii, verily, he has wrought a dreadful deed! And if it was a human being,. . . ?–But what human being could do it?”