"Give me then leave, that eftsoons I show
This Aómar as weak as the rest !"
"On the morrow, 'twixt dawn and the sunrising, go,
Put the strength of my saint to the test !
"Yet ware thee well, for, a trembling slave,
Thou shalt serve him henceforth, if thou fail !"
"Be it so," said the fiend, "and no better I crave,
If I know not the man I assail."
"Prayer," said Aómar, "is better than sleep !"
As he rose ere his eye, by the light
That so doubtfully hovered afar on the steep,
Could discern the black thread from the white.*
Solemn and glad, to the scanty well
Of his tribe, like a prophet he goes —
Lo ! the pitcher, that there he hath bowed him to fill,
With the purest of silver o'erflows !
* The morning prayer of the faithful Mohammedan should commence,
as soon as he can distinguish a white thread from a black one.
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