لمن الدار تعفت بخيم — عدي بن زيد

Whose is the dwelling, effaced at Khiyam?

It stands transformed by the long passage of time.

The eye can discern nothing of its traces

save a trench like a line drawn with a pen,

sound and whole, encircling the site in one unbroken ring,

as a hawk encircles pigeons among the acacias,

and three hearthstones there, like doves,

with charcoal's tattoo-marks where they crouched.

I question the dwelling, after greeting it,

about my beloved—but find it deaf.

By the dwelling's life! Had its people been there

when the tears of your eyes streamed down,

it would not, in your grief, have turned from one parted from his love,

who came seeking a cure for sickness.

Often I set out at dawn, my companions setting out with me,

on a dark-red horse like leather from ʿUkāẓ,

one that surpassed all horses through noble blood,

bred between Yaʿbūb and the line of Saḥam.

In him the blood of noble stallions reached its fullness;

statue-like he stands, surging and thunderous.

We traveled light, without our provisions,

trusting in the colt—not out of want.

Then, in the blazing heat of forenoon, there was the herd,

and a striped wild ass with firm, well-knit flesh,

thick-backed, four years old and powerfully built;

the rear of him stood spirited, high, and prominent—

neither a puny, weak young beast bearing a defect,

nor an old one nearing the age of decrepitude.

He saw us and came toward us, hoarse-voiced,

full of vigor, making the herd climb the hilltops' ridge.

He set both canine teeth into their hindquarters

whenever one fell back, allowing no lagging.

But when our horse charged headlong, all of him

was a Zaʿibī spear on a solid Rudaynian shaft.

We drove him at the wild ass from amid the herd,

after it broke away, whether pressing straight on or swerving.

Then he was like a bucket in the water-drawer's hand:

its crosspieces failed, and it snapped loose.