The Arab now his little pot of water showed. As seed to earth, he it on Caliph’s court bestowed; 575 And said: “Present my offering at the sovereign’s feet, If beggar save his king from want, it’s surely meet. The water’s fresh; the little jar green-glazed and new; Filled from a pool replenished by the rain and dew.” On hearing this the guards were laughing in their sleeves; But still, as precious, took the jar;--polite court-reeves! The Caliph’s kindly nature, active, well-informed, To kindness had each member of his court reformed. For as the sovereign is, so will his subjects be. The azure vault of heaven makes green the earth;--you see. 580 A king’s a reservoir; his servants are his mains, Through whom his bounty flows, to swell his subjects’ veins. The stream, if flowing from a tank all sweet and pure, Each main distributes bounty, courtesy;--be sure. But should the reservoir prove foul and nauseous, then, The mains can flow with naught but venom, like a fen. The mains can only what they get convey around. Remember this. We’re treading now on solid ground. A sovereign’s goodness is an unembodied soul, That permeates the clay of human frame, its goal. 585 It is the mind, the all-informing, well-derived, That brings the body into discipline, where hived. Love is a wanton, restless, reckless of control, That drives the man to madness; passion does extol; But goodness is a stream as sweet as Fount of Life; Its pebbles are all pearls, all jewels, beauteous, rife. Whichever be the science makes a teacher famed, His scholars’ minds with that will surely be inflamed. A jurist’s pupils study principles of law, If but their mental principles be free from flaw. 590 A lawyer’s prentice over subtle cases pores; The principles, with him, are most unwelcome bores. A syntax-teacher rears a host of grammar’s sons, With whom his syntax passes for the sun of suns. A teacher who inculcates abnegation’s creed, Surrounds himself with pupils free from lust and greed. But at the hour of death, of science’s long roll, The art of poverty’s what most behoves man’s soul.