"
His kindred wept, and his neighbors said
"The poor old captain is out of his head."
But from morn to noon, and from noon to night,
He toiled at his task with main and might;
And when at last, from the loosened earth,
Under his spade the stream gushed forth,
And fast as he climbed to his deep well's brim,
The water he dug for followed him,
He shouted for joy: "I have kept my word,
And here is the well I promised the Lord!"
The long years came and the long years went,
And he sat by his roadside well content;
He watched the travellers, heat-oppressed,
Pause by the way to drink and rest,
And the sweltering horses dip, as they drank,
Their nostrils deep in the cool, sweet tank,
And grateful at heart, his memory went
Back to that waterless Orient,
And the blessed answer of prayer, which came
To the earth of iron and sky of flame.
And when a wayfarer weary and hot,
Kept to the mid road, pausing not
For the well's refreshing, he shook his head;
"He don't know the value of water," he said;
"Had he prayed for a drop, as I have done,
In the desert circle of sand and sun,
"He would drink and rest, and go home to tell
That God's best gift is the wayside well!"
AN OUTDOOR RECEPTION.
The substance of these lines, hastily pencilled several years ago,
I find among such of my unprinted scraps as have escaped the
waste-basket and the fire.
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