His eager curiosity began to rise.
He sought for ‘Umer with redoubled zeal and zest;
But in so doing lost his horse, and eke his chest.
He wandered everywhere to seek the Caliph out.
Like one distracted asked each passer-by his route.
“Is’t possible,” he said, “that such a man there be,
When like the soul to sight invisible is he?”40
He sought for him as though he ’d been his truant slave,
But: “He who seeks shall find” ’s a very well-known stave.
A desert-Arab woman saw he at the last,