Thou’st hit the very offering;—useful, good, and right!
Sew it up carefully in case of felt, threefold.
Our Caliph’s breakfast-water[313] shall it be;—so cold!
No other water’s like it in this world of ours;—
It’s heaven’s pure ambrosia, ’still’d from vernal showers!480
Poor cits know none but waters hard and bitter all;—
Whence various maladies, with blindness, them befall!”
The bird that lives where salt-marsh noisome airs exhales,
Knows naught of joys pure water gives, and spicy gales!
So thou, good man, who dwelledst ’midst the desert’s waste,