I seem to see the fountains twain Of Hate and Love in Arden, where, In times of regal Charlemagne, Great Roland drank and Oliver. Where, wandered from Montalban's towers, The paladin, Rinaldo, slept, While, leaning o'er him through the flowers, Angelica above him wept. JAAFER THE BARMECIDE _Scene, Baghdad: time of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid. Salih ben Tarif speaks._ With Imam Hassan I had reached the khan Outside of Ambar. Jaafer at the door Of his pavilion watched a caravan Inbound from Yemen.--Ah, the bales it bore Of richest stuffs and spices!--'Mid the rout Of porters, camel-drivers, old and poor, A singer stood,--a blindman, singing out With luted preludes. Imam Hassan then: "'Tis Zekkar; he, t' whom, with the blind about The Mosque of Moons, I with our holy men Scattered my silver at the hour of prayer, When hearts are open unto Allah's ken.-- Danic or dirhem, though, were wasted there: Yea, by the Prophet! had one sown dinars _He_ had not budged one finger or that stare. And so the beggars and the scavengers Got all." Then I: "The very same whom I-- Guard at the Western Portal--'neath the stars Some midnights past heard singing. Dim the dry Hot night; and Baghdad only knew of us Until, gray shadows shuffling slowly by, Pilgrims for Mecca passed, all vaporous In dust and darkness; them we challenged not. --Slaves, with the tribute of Nicephorus The Roman, from long shallops, as they shot Along the moonlit Tigris far away, Timing their oars, raised languid chanting.-- What This blindman sang was sweeter than--let's say-- The songs of Ibrahim, the dulcet frets Of Zulzul's lute. I listened till the day Made gold of all the city's minarets, And the muezzin summoned us to pray."