Explore "Jaafer the Barmecide" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
_Scene, Baghdad: time of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid. Salih ben Tarif / speaks._
/ With Imam Hassan I had reached the khan / Outside of Ambar. Jaafer at the door / Of his pavilion watched a caravan / Inbound from Yemen. -- Ah, the bales it bore / Of richest stuffs and spices! -- 'Mid the rout / Of porters, camel-drivers, old and poor, / A singer stood, -- a blindman, singing out / With luted preludes. Imam Hassan then: / "Tis Zekkar; he, t' whom, with the blind about / The Mosque of Moons, I with our holy men / Scattered my silver at the hour of prayer, / When hearts are open unto Allah's ken. -- / Danic or dirhem, though, were wasted there: / Yea, by the Prophet! had one sown dinars / _He_ had not budged one finger or that stare. / And so the beggars and the scavengers / Got all."