"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;
"There was neither life nor herbage, not a drop of water lay,
All along the arid valley where thou seest this well to-day.
"Sixty years have wrought their changes since a man of wealth
and pride,
With his servants and his camels, here, amidst his riches, died.
"As we journeyed o'er the Desert, dead beneath the blazing sky,
Here I saw them, beasts and masters, in a common burial lie;
"Thirty men and eighty camels did the shrouding sand infold;
And we gathered up their treasure, spices, precious stones, and gold;
"Then we heaped the sand above them, and, beneath the burning sun,
With a friendly care we finished what the winds had well begun.
"Still I hold that master's treasure, and his record, and his name;
Long I waited for his kindred, but no kindred ever came.
"Time, who beareth all things onward, hither bore our steps again,
When around this spot were scattered whitened bones of beasts and men;
"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.
"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.