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| ABDEL-HASSAN o’er the desert journeyed with his caravan,— | |
| Many a richly laden camel, many a faithful serving-man. | |
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| And before the haughty master bowed alike the man and beast; | |
| For the power of Abdel-Hassan was the wonder of the East. | |
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| It was now the twelfth day’s journey, but its closing did not bring | 5 |
| Abdel-Hassan and his servants to the long-expected spring. | |
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| From the ancient line of travel they had wandered far away, | |
| And at evening, faint and weary, on a waste of desert lay. | |
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| Fainting men and famished camels stretched them round the master’s tent; | |
| For the water-skins were empty, and the dates were nearly spent. | 10 |
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| All the night, as Abdel-Hassan on the desert lay apart, | |
| Nothing broke the lifeless silence but the throbbing of his heart; | |
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| All the night he heard it beating, while his sleepless, anxious eyes | |
| Watched the shining constellations wheeling onward through the skies. | |
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| When the glowing orbs, receding, paled before the coming day, | 15 |
| Abdel-Hassan called his servants, and devoutly knelt to pray. | |
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| Then his words were few and solemn to the leader of his train: | |
| “Thirty men and eighty camels, Haroun, in thy care remain. | |
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| “Keep the beasts and guard the treasure till the needed aid I bring. | |
| God is great! His name is mighty! I, alone, will seek the spring.” | 20 |
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| Mounted on his strongest camel, Abdel-Hassan rode away, | |
| While his faithful followers watched him passing in the blaze of day, | |
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| Like a speck upon the desert, like a moving human hand, | |
| Where the fiery skies were sweeping down to meet the burning sand. | |
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| Passed he then their far horizon, and beyond it rode alone; | 25 |
| They alone, with Arab patience, lay within its flaming zone. | |
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| Day by day the servants waited, but the master never came,— | |
| Day by day, in feebler accents, called on Allah’s holy name. | |
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| One by one they killed the camels, loathing still the proffered food, | |
| But in weakness or in frenzy slaked their burning thirst in blood. | 30 |
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| On unheeded heaps of treasure rested each unconscious head; | |
| While with pious care the dying struggled to entomb the dead. | |
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| So they perished. Gaunt with famine, still did Haroun’s trusty hand | |
| For his latest dead companion scoop sepulture in the sand. | |
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| Then he died; and pious Nature, where he lay so gaunt and grim, | 35 |
| Moved by her divine compassion, did the same kind thing for him. | |
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| Earth upon her burning bosom held him in his final rest, | |
| While the hot winds of the desert piled the sand above his breast. | |
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| Onward in his fiery travel Abdel-Hassan held his way, | |
| Yielding to the camel’s instinct, halting not, by night or day, | 40 |
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| Till the faithful beast, exhausted in her fearful journey, fell, | |
| With her eye upon the palm-trees rising o’er the lonely well: | |
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| With a faint, convulsive struggle, and a feeble moan, she died, | |
| While her still surviving master lay unconscious by her side. | |
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| So he lay until the evening, when a passing caravan | 45 |
| From the dead encumbering camel brought to life the dying man. | |
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| Slowly murmured Abdel-Hassan, as they bathed his fainting head, | |
| “All is lost, for all have perished! they are numbered with the dead. | |
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| “I, who had such power and treasure but a single moon ago, | |
| Now my life and poor subsistence to a stranger’s bounty owe. | 50 |
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| “God is great! His name is mighty! He is victor in the strife! | |
| Stripped of pride and power and substance, he hath left me faith and life.” | |
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| Sixty years had Abdel-Hassan, since the stranger’s friendly hand | |
| Saved him from the burning desert, lived and prospered in the land; | |
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| And his life of peaceful labor, in its pure and simple ways, | 55 |
| For his loss fourfold returned him, and a mighty length of days. | |
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| Sixty years of faith and patience gave him wisdom’s mural crown; | |
| Sons and daughters brought him honor with his riches and renown. | |
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| Men beheld his reverend aspect, and revered his blameless name; | |
| And in peace he dwelt with strangers, in the fulness of his fame. | 60 |
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| But the heart of Abdel-Hassan yearned, as yearns the heart of man, | |
| Still to die among his kindred, ending life where it began. | |
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| So he summoned all his household, and he gave the brief command,— | |
| “Go and gather all our substance; we depart from out the land.” | |
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| So they journeyed to the desert with a great and numerous train, | 65 |
| To his old nomadic instinct trusting life and wealth again. | |
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| It was now the sixth day’s journey, when they met the moving sand, | |
| On the great wind of the desert, driving o’er that arid land; | |
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| And the air was red and fervid with the simoom’s fiery breath; | |
| None could see his nearest fellow in the stifling blast of death. | 70 |
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| Blinded men from prostrate camels piled the stores to windward round, | |
| And within the barrier herded, on the hot, unstable ground. | |
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| Two whole days the great wind lasted, when the living of the train | |
| From the hot drifts dug the camels and resumed their way again. | |
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| But the lines of care grew deeper on the master’s swarthy cheek, | 75 |
| While around the weakest fainted and the strongest waxéd weak; | |
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| And the water-skins were empty, and a silent murmur ran | |
| From the faint, bewildered servants through the straggling caravan:— | |
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| “Let the land we left be blessed!—that to which we go, accurst! | |
| From our pleasant wells of water came we here to die of thirst?” | 80 |
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| But the master stilled the murmur with his steadfast, quiet eye: | |
| “God is great,” he said, devoutly,—“when he wills it, we shall die.” | |
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| 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. | |
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| Man and beast, with weak steps quickened, hasted to the lonely well, | 85 |
| And around it, faint and panting, in a grateful tumult fell. | |
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| Many days they stayed and rested, and amidst his fervent prayer | |
| Abdel-Hassan pondered deeply that strange bond which held him there. | |
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| Then there came an aged stranger, journeying with his caravan; | |
| And when each had each saluted, Abdel-Hassan thus began:— | 90 |
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| “Knowest thou this well of water? lies it on the travelled ways?” | |
| And he answered: “From the highway thou art distant many days. | |
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| “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; | |
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| “There was neither life nor herbage, not a drop of water lay, | 95 |
| All along the arid valley where thou seest this well to-day. | |
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| “Sixty years have wrought their changes since a man of wealth and pride, | |
| With his servants and his camels, here, amidst his riches, died. | |
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| “As we journeyed o’er the desert, dead beneath the blazing sky, | |
| Here I saw them, beasts and masters, in a common burial lie; | 100 |
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| “Thirty men and eighty camels did the shrouding sand enfold; | |
| And we gathered up their treasure, spices, precious stones, and gold; | |
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| “Then we heaped the sand above them, and, beneath the burning sun, | |
| With a friendly care we finished what the winds had well begun. | |
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| “Still I hold that master’s treasure, and his record, and his name; | 105 |
| Long I waited for his kindred, but no kindred ever came. | |
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| “Time, who beareth all things onward, hither bore our steps again, | |
| When around this spot were scattered whitened bones of beasts and men; | |
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| “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. | 110 |
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| “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. | |
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| “In the graves of men and camels long the dates unheeded lay, | |
| Till their germs of life commanded larger life from that decay; | |
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| “And the falling dews, arrested, nourished every tender shoot, | 115 |
| While beneath, the hidden moisture gathered to each wandering root. | |
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| “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. | |
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| “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; | 120 |
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| “Life from death, and good from evil!—from that buried caravan | |
| Springs the life to save the living, many a weak, despairing man.” | |
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| As he ended, Abdel-Hassan, quivering through his aged frame, | |
| Asked, in accents slow and broken, “Knowest thou that master’s name?” | |
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| “He was known as Abdel-Hassan, famed for wealth and power and pride; | 125 |
| But the proud have often fallen, and, as he, the great have died!” | |
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| Then, upon the ground before them, prostrate Abdel-Hassan fell, | |
| With his aged hands extended, trembling, to the lonely well,— | |
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| And the sacred soil beneath him cast upon his hoary head,— | |
| Named the servants and the camels,—summoned Haroun from the dead,— | 130 |
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| Clutched the unconscious palms around him, as if they were living men,— | |
| And before him, in their order, rose his buried train again. | |
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| Moved by pity, spake the stranger, bending o’er him in his grief: | |
| “What affects the man of sorrow? Speak,—for speaking is relief.” | |
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| Then he answered, rising slowly to that aged stranger’s knee,— | 135 |
| “Thou beholdest Abdel-Hassan! They were mine, and I am he!” | |
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| Wondering, stood they all around him, and a reverent silence kept, | |
| While, amidst them, Abdel-Hassan lifted up his voice and wept. | |
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| Joy and grief, and faith and triumph, mingled in his flowing tears; | |
| Refluent on his patient spirit rolled the tide of sixty years. | 140 |
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| As the past and present blended, lo! his larger vision saw, | |
| In his own life’s compensation, Nature’s universal law. | |
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| “God is good, O reverend stranger! He hath taught me of his ways, | |
| By this great and crowning lesson, in the evening of my days. | |
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| “Keep the treasure,—I have plenty,—and am richer that I see | 145 |
| Life ascend, through change and evil, to that perfect life to be,— | |
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| “In each woe a blessing folded, from all loss a greater gain, | |
| Joy and hope from fear and sorrow, rest and peace from toil and pain. | |
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| “God is great! His name is mighty! He is victor in the strife! | |
| For he bringeth Good from Evil, and from Death commandeth Life!” | 150 |
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