“Her form was lighter, in its shifting grace, Than some impassioned Almée’s, when the dance Unbinds her scarf, and golden anklets gleam Through floating drapery, on the buoyant air. Her light, free head was ever held aloft; Between her slender and transparent ears The silken forelock tossed; her nostril’s arch, Thin-drawn, in proud and pliant beauty spread, Snuffing the desert winds. Her glossy neck Curved to the shoulder like an eagle’s wing, And all her matchless lines of flank and limb Seemed fashioned from the flying shapes of air By hands of lightning. When the war-shouts rang From tent to tent, her keen and restless eye Shone like a blood-red ruby, and her neigh Rang wild and sharp above the clash of spears. “The tribes of Tigris and the Desert knew her: Sofuk before the Shammar bands she bore To meet the dread Jebours, who waited not To bid her welcome; and the savage Koord, Chased from his bold irruption on the plain, Has seen her hoof prints in his mountain snow. Lithe as the dark-eyed Syrian gazelle, O’er ledge and chasm and barren steep amid The Sinjar hills, she ran the wild ass down. Through many a battle’s thickest brunt she stormed, Reeking with sweat and dust, and fetlock deep In curdling gore. When hot and lurid haze Stifled the crimson sun, she swept before The whirling sand-spout, till her gusty mane Flared in its vortex, while the camels lay Groaning and helpless on the fiery waste. “The tribes of Taurus and the Caspian knew her: The Georgian chiefs have heard her trumpet neigh Before the walls of Teflis; pines that grow On ancient Caucasus have harbored her, Sleeping by Sofuk in their spicy gloom. The surf of Trebizond has bathed her flanks, When from the shore she saw the white-sailed bark That brought him home from Stamboul. Never yet, O Arabs, never yet was like to Kubleh!