XXVIII.

'I have been in a good land,' Quoth the king: 'O sweet sleep bland, Blessed! I am grown to more, Now the doing of right hath moved Me to love of right, and proved If one doth it, he shall be Twice the man he was before. Verily and verily, Thou fair woman, thou didst well; I look back and scarce may tell Those false days of tinsel sheen, Flattery, feasting, that have been. Shows of life that were but shows, How they held me; being I ween Like sand-pictures thin, that rose Quivering, when our thirsty bands Marched i' the hot Egyptian lands; Shade of palms on a thick green plot, Pools of water that was not, Mocking us and melting away.