As he spake, he swept the Desert with his vision clear and calm, And along the far horizon saw the green crest of the palm. Man and beast, with weak steps quickened, hasted to the lonely well, And around it, faint and panting, in a grateful tumult fell. Many days they stayed and rested, and amidst his fervent prayer Abdel-Hassan pondered deeply that strange bond which held him there. Then there came an aged stranger, journeying with his caravan; And when each had each saluted, Abdel-Hassan thus began:-- "Knowest thou this well of water? lies it on the travelled ways?" And he answered,--"From the highway thou art distant many days. "Where thou seest this well of water, where these thorns and palm-trees stand, Once the Desert swept unbroken in a waste of burning sand; "There was neither life nor herbage, not a drop of water lay, All along the arid valley where thou seest this well to-day. "Sixty years have wrought their changes since a man of wealth and pride, With his servants and his camels, here, amidst his riches, died. "As we journeyed o'er the Desert, dead beneath the blazing sky, Here I saw them, beasts and masters, in a common burial lie; "Thirty men and eighty camels did the shrouding sand infold; And we gathered up their treasure, spices, precious stones, and gold; "Then we heaped the sand above them, and, beneath the burning sun, With a friendly care we finished what the winds had well begun. "Still I hold that master's treasure, and his record, and his name; Long I waited for his kindred, but no kindred ever came. "Time, who beareth all things onward, hither bore our steps again, When around this spot were scattered whitened bones of beasts and men; "And from out the heaving hillocks of the mingled sand and mould Lo! the little palms were springing, which to-day are great and old. "From the shrubs we held the camels; for I felt that life of man, Breaking to new forms of being, through that tender herbage ran. "In the graves of men and camels long the dates unheeded lay, Till their germs of life commanded larger life from that decay; "And the falling dews, arrested, nourished every tender shoot, While beneath, the hidden moisture gathered to each wandering root. "So they grew; and I have watched them, as we journeyed, year by year; And we digged this well beneath them, where thou seest it, fresh and clear. "Thus from waste and loss and sorrow still are joy and beauty born, Like the fruitage of these palm-trees and the blossom of the thorn; "Life from death, and good from evil!--from that buried caravan Springs the life to save the living, many a weak, despairing man." As he ended, Abdel-Hassan, quivering through his aged frame, Asked, in accents slow and broken, "Knowest thou that master's name?"