تَلهو فَتَختَضِعُ المَطِيُّ أَمامَها

وَتَخِبُّ هَروَلَةَ الظَليمِ النافِرِ

She frolics, and the riding beasts bow before her;

she trots with the quick gait of a startled cock ostrich.

وَإِذا الفَلاةُ تَعَرَّضَت غيطانُها

نَهَضَت بِأَتلَعَ في الجَديلِ عَراعِرِ

And when the desert’s hollows open out,

she rises, her long neck towering within the plaited rein.

وَسَجَت دَعائِمُ وَاِستَعجَلَت

مِن وَقعِهِنَّ بِصائِبٍ مُتَبادِرِ

Her pillar-legs flow on and hasten,

under their sure tread, stroke following swiftly upon stroke.

تَعدو بِخيطَفٍ مَأطورَةٍ

ويدٍ لَها نَسَجَت بِضَبعٍ مائِرِ

She runs with a slender, tightly drawn waist,

and a foreleg woven into a swaying upper arm.

وَإِذا المَطِيُّ تَحَدَّرَت أَعطافُهُ

نَضَحَ الكَحيلُ بِهِ كَجَوفِ القاطِرِ

And when the mount’s flanks stream downward,

dark sweat bedews it, like the hollow of a dripping vessel.

وَكَسا مَعاطِسَها اللُغامُ وَلُفِّعَت

فيهِ حَواجِبُ عَينِها بغَفائِرِ

Foam mantles her nostrils, and she is wrapped in it;

in it, her eye-brows are veiled by dense fringes—

زَهِمُ المَشاشِ مِنَ النَواشِطِ بِاللَوى

أَو بِالجَنابِ رَأَينَ أَسهُمَ عائِرِ

like the thick-jointed roaming wild beasts at al-Liwā,

or at al-Janāh, when they catch sight of errant arrows.