But when their meal was o’er—when the red fires Blazed brighter, and the dogs no longer bayed— When Shammar hunters with the boys sat down To cleanse their bloody knives, came Alimar, The poet of the tribe, whose songs of love Are sweeter than Balsora’s nightingales— Whose songs of war can fire the Arab blood Like war itself: who knows not Alimar? Then asked the men: “O Poet, sing of Kubleh!” And boys laid down the knives, half-burnished, saying: “Tell us of Kubleh, whom we never saw— Of wondrous Kubleh!” Closer flocked the group, With eager eyes about the flickering fire, While Alimar, beneath the Assyrian stars, Sang to the listening Arabs: “God is great! O Arabs, never yet since Mahmoud rode The sands of Yemen, and by Mecca’s gate That wingéd steed bestrode, whose mane of fire Blazed up the zenith, when, by Allah called, He bore the Prophet to the walls of Heaven, Was like to Kubleh, Sofuk’s wondrous mare: Not all the milk-white barbs, whose hoofs dashed flame In Bagdad’s stables, from the marble floor— Who, swathed in purple housings, pranced in state The gay bazars, by great Al-Raschid backed: Not the wild charger of Mongolian breed That went o’er half the world with Tamerlane: Nor yet those flying coursers, long ago From Ormuz brought by swarthy Indian grooms To Persia’s kings—the foals of sacred mares, Sired by the fiery stallions of the sea! “Who ever told, in all the Desert Land, The many deeds of Kubleh? Who can tell Whence came she, whence her like shall come again? O Arabs, like a tale of Sherezade Heard in the camp, when javelin shafts are tried On the hot eve of battle, is her story. “Far in the Southern sands, the hunters say, Did Sofuk find her, by a lonely palm. The well had dried; her fierce, impatient eye Glared red and sunken, and her slight young limbs Were lean with thirst. He checked his camel’s pace, And while it knelt, untied the water-skin, And when the wild mare drank, she followed him. Thence none but Sofuk might the saddle gird Upon her back, or clasp the brazen gear About her shining head, that brooked no curb From even him; for she, alike, was royal.