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?