1. O you who drive your mount beneath the darkness,

    swaggering—no, rather, without swagger.

  2. How did you come upon one with interlocking fangs,

    a fighter at home in the gloom of darkness?

  3. He does not flinch at a calamity hurled upon him,

    devastating, laying bare the bones of the shoulders;

  4. a foe you confront in a waste born of midday heat,

    mighty-knuckled, like a sword drawn from its sheath.

  5. He has never known palace chambers and their shade,

    empty-bellied among the palms, their dark mass swaying.

  6. His heart stays wakeful when hearts seek company

    in fear, and every formidable, valiant man is roused;

  7. there in the gloom, watching for his moment of heedlessness,

    like a stalking wolf in the dim darkness before dawn.

  8. So you found him steadfast of heart, undaunted,

    ever riding the withers of every terrifying undertaking.

  9. So he served you a keen white blade, like a streak of lightning,

    gleaming, falling upon its target and cleaving through.

  10. Then you fell headlong into your blood, between two seething folds,

    where the trace of blood rises, mounting high.

Sol 6.1