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[No. 1, 
C. J. Lyall —The Mo l allaqah of Lebid , with the 
I have passed as we told tales together : and many a vintner’s flag 
have I come to when it had been taken down and his wine grown 
[scarce and dear. 
I buy the costly wine in the old and blackened skin 
or the pitch-anointed jar, when its seal is broken and its wine ladled 
[out. 
Many the clear draught I have drunk in the morn, and many the sing. 
[ing-girl 
to whom I have listened as she strained the strings on the lute 
[which her thumb adjusts. 
I have risen to drink of the wine before the cock crowed at dawn 
that I might drink deep of it again when the sleepers awoke from 
[sleep. 
And many the morning of wind and cold whose chill I have shut out 
when its reins were held in the hand of the bitter North. 
And I too have shielded the Tribe from harm when there bore my wea¬ 
pons 
a swift mare, my girdle its reins as I went forth at dawn : 
I mounted the watching-mound on the top of a dusty hill 
narrow in standing-place, whose dust blew towards the standards 
[of the foe : 
Until, when the Sun put forth his hand and laid hold of night 
and the darkness covered all the terrors of our line of fear, 
I came down, and my mare reared up like a lofty trunk of palm 
bare of branches, which the climber can never hope to climb ; 
I pushed her along as the ostrich flees, and swifter than that, 
until, when she became hot with the race and her bones light, 
The light saddle loosened upon her, and her breast streamed with 
[sweat, 
and her girth was soaked through and through with the foam 
[that covered her. 
She rises in the air, and strives against the rein, and inclines sideways 
like the circling down of a dove when a flight of them flies to drink. 
And many the Court of Kings thronged by strangers who know not one 
[another, 
whose gifts are hoped for by men and their chiding feared, 
Where thick-necked men stood, like lions, threatening one another in 
[their hate 
as though they were fiends of the Desert with their feet firm 
[set in strife— 
I have denied what was vain in their claims, and dealt out to each his due 
as I judged right: and their noblest was not nobler than I. 
♦ 
