Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/The horse of the desert
THE HORSE OF THE DESERT.
(FROM AN ARABIC POEM, GIVEN IN GENERAL DAUMAS’S
“CHEVAUX DU SAHARA.”)
My steed is black—my steed is black,
As a moonless and starless night;
He was foaled in wide deserts without a track,
He drinks the wind in fight;
So drank the wind his sire before him,
And high of blood the dam that bore him.
In days when the hot war-smoke rises high
My comrades hail him as the unwing’d flier,
His speed outstrips the very lightning fire;—
May God preserve him from each evil eye.
Like the gazelle’s his ever-quivering ears,
His eyes gleam softly as a woman’s, when
Her looks of love are full;
His nostrils gape, dark as the lion’s den,
And, in the shock of battle, he uprears
The forehead of a bull.
His croup, his flanks, his shoulders, all are long,
His legs are flat, his quarters clean and round,
Snake-like his tail shoots out, his hocks are strong,
Such as the desert ostrich bear along,
And his lithe fetlocks spurn the echoing ground.
As my own soul I trust him, without fear,
No mortal ever yet bestrode his peer.
His flesh is as the Zebra’s firm, he glides
Fox-like, whilst cantering slow across the plain;
But, when at speed, his limbs put on amain
The wolf’s long gallop, and untiring strides.
Yes, in one day he does the work of five;
No spur his spirit wakes,
But each strong vein and sinew seems alive
At every bound he makes.
Over the pathless sand, he darteth, straight
As God’s keen arrow from the bow of fate;
Or like some thirsty dove, first of the flock,
Towards water hidden in a hollow rock.
A war-horse true, to front the clash of swords,
He loves to hound the lion to his lair;
Glory, with booty won from alien hordes,
And the soft voices of our virgins fair,
Fill him with fierce delight.
When on his back through peril’s heat I break,
His neighings call the vultures down, and shake
Each foeman’s soul with sudden fright;
On him I fear not death, she shrinks aside,
Scared by the echoing thunder of his stride.
My darling says, “Come, come to me alone,
Through night and silence come to me, mine own.”
(O stranger, from beyond the howling seas,
Leave, leave those flowers,
Whose bloom is ours,
To the love-murmur of their native bees.)
Then, by some sweet and subtle instinct taught,
He learns to read aright each secret thought.
Obedient to the impulse which I feel,
As to my hand this lifeless steel,
Like a hawk, sweeping homeward to her nest,
Strong in his quenchless will,
He rushes onward still,
That I may clasp the loved-one to my breast;
But whilst I lay me down, with happy sighs,
Under the light of those entrancing eyes,
In some secluded spot, beyond her door,
With countless dangers near, he stands alone,
As if his fiery heart were changed to stone;
And champs his bit till I return once more.
By our great Prophet’s head, this matchless horse
Is the true pearl of every caravan;
The light and life of all our camps,—the force
And glory of his clan.
Born, when the war-shout wakes, to lead,
I am an Arab scheich,
My flocks are there the poor to feed,
My name protects the weak.
The stranger from my father’s tent
Is never turn’d aside,
For God his choicest gifts hath lent,
And bless’d me far and wide;
But if change come, and angry fate
Hold forth her bitter cup to drink,
The path of honour still is straight,
From thence I shall not shrink.
I shall live nobly yet, if ills are borne
In patient trust;
I shall be rich enough, if I can scorn
The sordid lust
Of gold, and look for happier days, to bloom
Beyond the night-frost of the tomb.
Yea, though misfortune’s iron hand
Should smite me with her heaviest rod,
I shall be strong enough to stand,
And praise the name of God.