“Allah! il Allah!” rose the shout,—­and starting with a bound,
The dreadful Creature cleared at once a dozen yards of ground;
And grasping at her mane with both my cold convulsive hands,
Away we flew—­away! away! across the shifting sands! 
My eyes were closed in utter dread of such a fearful race,
But yet by certain signs I knew we went no earthly pace,
For turn whichever way we might, the wind with equal force
Rush’d like a horrid hurricane still adverse to our course—­
One moment close at hand I heard the roaring Syrian Sea,
The next is only murmur’d like the humming of a bee! 
And when I dared at last to glance across the wild immense,
Oh ne’er shall I forget the whirl that met the dizzy sense!

What seem’d a little sprig of fern, ere lips could reckon twain,
A palm of forty cubits high, we passed it on the plain! 
What tongue could tell,—­what pencil paint,—­what pen describe the ride? 
Now off—­now on—­now up—­now down,—­and flung from side to side! 
I tried to speak, but had no voice, to soothe her with its tone—­
My scanty breath was jolted out with many a sudden groan—­
My joints were racked—­my back was strained, so firmly I had clung—­
My nostrils gush’d, and thrice my teeth had bitten through my tongue—­
When lo!—­farewell all hope of life!—­she turn’d and faced the rocks,
None but a flying horse could clear those monstrous granite blocks! 
So thought I,—­but I little knew the desert pride and fire,
Deriv’d from a most deer-like dam, and lion-hearted sire;
Little I guess’d the energy of muscle, blood, and bone,
Bound after bound, with eager springs, she clear’d each massive stone;—­
Nine mortal leaps were pass’d before a huge gray rock at length
Stood planted there as if to dare her utmost pitch of strength—­
My time was come! that granite heap my monument of death! 
She paused, she snorted loud and long, and drew a fuller breath;
Nine strides and then a louder beat that warn’d me of her spring,
I felt her rising in the air like eagle on the wing—­
But oh! the crash!—­the hideous shock!—­the million sparks around! 
Her hindmost hoofs had struck the crest of that prodigious mound!

Wild shriek’d the headlong Desert-Born—­or else ’twas demon’s mirth,
One second more, and Man and Mare roll’d breathless on the earth!

* * * * *

How long it was I cannot tell ere I revived to sense,
And then but to endure the pangs of agony intense;
For over me lay powerless, and still as any stone,
The Corse that erst had so much fire, strength, spirit, of its own. 
My heart was still—­my pulses stopp’d—­midway ’twixt life and death,
With pain unspeakable I fetch’d the fragment of a breath,
Not vital air enough to frame one short and feeble sigh,
Yet even that I loath’d because it would not let me die. 
Oh! slowly, slowly, slowly on, from starry night till