Page:Arabian poetry for English readers.djvu/104

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THE POEM OF TARAFA.

THE mansion of Khaula is desolate, and the traces of it on the stony hills of Tahmed faintly shine, like the remains of blue figures painted on the back of a hand."

2. While I spoke thus to myself, my companions stopped their coursers by my side, and said, "Perish not through despair, but act with fortitude."

3. Ah, said I, the vehicles which bore away my fair one on the morning when the tribe of Malec departed, and their camels were traversing the banks of Deda, resembled large ships

4. Sailing from Aduli; or vessels of the merchant Ibn Yamin, which the mariner now turns obliquely, and now steers in a direct course;

5. Ships, which cleave the foaming waves with their prows, as a boy at his play divides with his hand the collected earth.

6. In that tribe was a lovely antelope, with black eyes, dark ruddy lips, and a beautiful neck, gracefully raised to crop the fresh berries of erac—a neck adorned with two strings of pearls and topazes.

7. She strays from her young, and feeds with the herd of roes in the tangled thicket, where she browses the edges of the wild fruit, and covers herself with a mantle of leaves.