"
As he ended, Abdel-Hassan, quivering through his aged frame,
Asked, in accents slow and broken, "Knowest thou that master's name?"
"He was known as Abdel-Hassan, famed for wealth and power and pride;
But the proud have often fallen, and, as he, the great have died!"
Then, upon the ground before them, prostrate Abdel-Hassan fell,
With his aged hands extended, trembling, to the lonely well,--
And the sacred soil beneath him cast upon his hoary head,--
Named the servants and the camels,--summoned Haroun from the dead,--
Clutched the unconscious palms around him, as if they were living men,--
And before him, in their order, rose his buried train again.
Moved by pity, spake the stranger, bending o'er him in his grief:--
"What affects the man of sorrow? Speak,--for speaking is relief."
Then he answered, rising slowly to that aged stranger's knee,--
"Thou beholdest Abdel-Hassan! They were mine, and I am he!"
Wondering, stood they all around him, and a reverent silence kept,
While, amidst them, Abdel-Hassan lifted up his voice and wept.
Joy and grief, and faith and triumph, mingled in his flowing tears;
Refluent on his patient spirit rolled the tide of sixty years.
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