When the liquor's out why clink the cannikin?I did think to describe you the panic inThe redoubtable breast of our master the mannikin,790And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness,How she turned as a shark to snap the spare-ribClean off, sailors says, from a pearl-diving Carib,When she heard, what she called the flight of the feloness—But it seems such child's play,795What they said and did with the lady away!And to dance on, when we've lost the music,Always made me—and no doubt makes you—sick.Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so sternAs that sweet form disappeared through the postern,800She that kept it in constant good humor,It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more.But the world thought otherwise and went on,And my head's one that its spite was spent on;Thirty years are fled since that morning,805And with them all my head's adorning.Nor did the old Duchess die outright,As you expect, of suppressed spite,The natural end of every adderNot suffered to empty its poison-bladder;810But she and her son agreed, I take it,That no one should touch on the story to wake it,For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery,So, they made no search and small inquiry—And when fresh gypsies have paid us a visit, I've815Noticed the couple were never inquisitive,But told them they're folks the Duke don't want here,And bade them make haste and cross the frontier.Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it,And the old one was in the young one's stead,820And took, in her place, the household's head,And a blessed time the household had of it!And were I not, as a man may say, cautiousHow I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous,I could favor you with sundry touches825Of the paint-smutches with which the DuchessHeightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness(To get on faster) until at last herCheek grew to be one master-plasterOf mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse:830In short, she grew from scalp to udderJust the object to make you shudder.
When the liquor's out why clink the cannikin?I did think to describe you the panic inThe redoubtable breast of our master the mannikin,790And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness,How she turned as a shark to snap the spare-ribClean off, sailors says, from a pearl-diving Carib,When she heard, what she called the flight of the feloness—But it seems such child's play,795What they said and did with the lady away!And to dance on, when we've lost the music,Always made me—and no doubt makes you—sick.Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so sternAs that sweet form disappeared through the postern,800She that kept it in constant good humor,It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more.But the world thought otherwise and went on,And my head's one that its spite was spent on;Thirty years are fled since that morning,805And with them all my head's adorning.Nor did the old Duchess die outright,As you expect, of suppressed spite,The natural end of every adderNot suffered to empty its poison-bladder;810But she and her son agreed, I take it,That no one should touch on the story to wake it,For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery,So, they made no search and small inquiry—And when fresh gypsies have paid us a visit, I've815Noticed the couple were never inquisitive,But told them they're folks the Duke don't want here,And bade them make haste and cross the frontier.Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it,And the old one was in the young one's stead,820And took, in her place, the household's head,And a blessed time the household had of it!And were I not, as a man may say, cautiousHow I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous,I could favor you with sundry touches825Of the paint-smutches with which the DuchessHeightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness(To get on faster) until at last herCheek grew to be one master-plasterOf mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse:830In short, she grew from scalp to udderJust the object to make you shudder.
You're my friend—What a thing friendship is, world without end!How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up835As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet,And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit,Our green Moldavia, the streaky syrup,Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids—Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids;840Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs,Gives your life's hourglass a shake when the thin sand doubtsWhether to run on or stop short, and guaranteesAge is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease.I have seen my little lady once more,845Jacynth, the gypsy, Berold, and the rest of it,For to me spoke the Duke, as I told you before;I always wanted to make a clean breast of it:And now it is made—why, my heart's blood, that went trickle,Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets,850Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle.And genially floats me about the giblets.I'll tell you what I intend to do:I must see this fellow his sad life through—He is our Duke, after all,855And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall.My father was born here, and I inheritHis fame, a chain he bound his son with;Could I pay in a lump I should prefer it,But there's no mine to blow up and get done with:860So, I must stay till the end of the chapter.For, as to our middle-age-manners-adapter,Be it a thing to be glad on or sorry on,Some day or other, his head in a morionAnd breast in a hauberk, his heels he'll kick up,865Slain by an onslaught fierce of hiccup.And then, when red doth the sword of our Duke rust,And its leathern sheath lie o'ergrown with a blue crust,Then I shall scrape together my earnings;For, you see, in the churchyard Jacynth reposes,870And our children all went the way of the roses.It's a long lane that knows no turnings.One needs but little tackle to travel in;So, just one stout cloak shall I indue:And for a staff, what beats the javelin875With which his boars my father pinned you?And then, for a purpose you shall hear presently,Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful,I shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly!Sorrow is vain and despondency sinful.880What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all;Cram in a day what his youth took a year to hold:When we mind labor, then only, we're too old—What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees,885(Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil)I hope to get safely out of the turmoilAnd arrive one day at the land of the gypsies,And find my lady, or hear the last news of herFrom some old thief and son of Lucifer,890His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop,Sunburned all over like an Æthiop.And when my Cotnar begins to operateAnd the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate,And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent,895I shall drop in with—as if by accident—"You never knew, then, how it all ended,What fortune good or bad attendedThe little lady your Queen befriended?"—And when that's told me, what's remaining?900This world's too hard for my explaining.The same wise judge of matters equineWho still preferred some slim four-year-oldTo the big-boned stock of mighty Berold,And, for strong Cotnar, drank French weak wine,905He also must be such a lady's scorner!Smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau:Now up, now down, the world's one see-saw.—So, I shall find out some snug cornerUnder a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight,910Turn myself round and bid the world good night;And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet's blowingWakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen)To a world where will be no further throwingPearls before swine that can't value them. Amen!915
You're my friend—What a thing friendship is, world without end!How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up835As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet,And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit,Our green Moldavia, the streaky syrup,Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids—Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids;840Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs,Gives your life's hourglass a shake when the thin sand doubtsWhether to run on or stop short, and guaranteesAge is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease.I have seen my little lady once more,845Jacynth, the gypsy, Berold, and the rest of it,For to me spoke the Duke, as I told you before;I always wanted to make a clean breast of it:And now it is made—why, my heart's blood, that went trickle,Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets,850Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle.And genially floats me about the giblets.I'll tell you what I intend to do:I must see this fellow his sad life through—He is our Duke, after all,855And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall.My father was born here, and I inheritHis fame, a chain he bound his son with;Could I pay in a lump I should prefer it,But there's no mine to blow up and get done with:860So, I must stay till the end of the chapter.For, as to our middle-age-manners-adapter,Be it a thing to be glad on or sorry on,Some day or other, his head in a morionAnd breast in a hauberk, his heels he'll kick up,865Slain by an onslaught fierce of hiccup.And then, when red doth the sword of our Duke rust,And its leathern sheath lie o'ergrown with a blue crust,Then I shall scrape together my earnings;For, you see, in the churchyard Jacynth reposes,870And our children all went the way of the roses.It's a long lane that knows no turnings.One needs but little tackle to travel in;So, just one stout cloak shall I indue:And for a staff, what beats the javelin875With which his boars my father pinned you?And then, for a purpose you shall hear presently,Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful,I shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly!Sorrow is vain and despondency sinful.880What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all;Cram in a day what his youth took a year to hold:When we mind labor, then only, we're too old—What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees,885(Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil)I hope to get safely out of the turmoilAnd arrive one day at the land of the gypsies,And find my lady, or hear the last news of herFrom some old thief and son of Lucifer,890His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop,Sunburned all over like an Æthiop.And when my Cotnar begins to operateAnd the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate,And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent,895I shall drop in with—as if by accident—"You never knew, then, how it all ended,What fortune good or bad attendedThe little lady your Queen befriended?"—And when that's told me, what's remaining?900This world's too hard for my explaining.The same wise judge of matters equineWho still preferred some slim four-year-oldTo the big-boned stock of mighty Berold,And, for strong Cotnar, drank French weak wine,905He also must be such a lady's scorner!Smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau:Now up, now down, the world's one see-saw.—So, I shall find out some snug cornerUnder a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight,910Turn myself round and bid the world good night;And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet's blowingWakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen)To a world where will be no further throwingPearls before swine that can't value them. Amen!915
Let us begin and carry up this corpse,Singing together.Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpesEach in its tetherSleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,5Cared-for till cock-crow;Look out if yonder be not day againRimming the rock-row!That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,Rarer, intenser,10Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,Chafes in the censer.Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;Seek we sepultureOn a tall mountain, citied to the top,15Crowded with culture!All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;Clouds overcome it;No! yonder sparkle is the citadel'sCircling its summit.20Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights;Wait ye the warning?Our low life was the level's and the night's;He's for the morning.Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,25'Ware the beholders!This is our master, famous, calm, and dead,Borne on our shoulders.Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,Safe from the weather!30He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,Singing together,He was a man born with thy face and throat,Lyric Apollo!Long he lived nameless; how should Spring take note35Winter would follow?Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!Cramped and diminished,Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!My dance is finished"?40No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side,Make for the city!)He knew the signal, and stepped on with prideOver men's pity;Left play for work, and grappled with the world45Bent on escaping:"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled?Show me their shaping,Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage—Give!"—So, he gowned him,50Straight got by heart that book to its last page:Learned, we found him.Yea, but we found him bald, too, eyes like lead,Accents uncertain:"Time to taste life," another would have said,55"Up with the curtain!"This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?Patience a moment!Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,Still there's the comment.60Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,Painful or easy!Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,Aye, nor feel queasy."Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,65When he had learned it,When he had gathered all books had to give!Sooner, he spurned it.Image the whole, then execute the parts—Fancy the fabric70Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz.Ere mortar dab brick!(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-placeGaping before us.)Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace75(Hearten our chorus!)That before living he'd learn how to live—No end to learning:Earn the means first—God surely will contriveUse for our earning.80Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes:Live now or never!"He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!Man has Forever."Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:85Calculusracked him:Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:Tussisattacked him."Now, master, take a little rest!"—not he!(Caution redoubled,90Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)Not a whit troubled,Back to his studies, fresher than at first,Fierce as a dragonHe (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)95Sucked at the flagon.Oh, if we draw a circle premature,Heedless of far gain,Greedy for quick returns of profit, sureBad is our bargain!100Was it not great? did not he throw on God,(He loves the burthen)—God's task to make the heavenly periodPerfect the earthen?Did not he magnify the mind, show clear105Just what it all meant?He would not discount life, as fools do here,Paid by installment.He ventured neck or nothing—heaven's successFound, or earth's failure:110"Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered, "Yes!Hence with life's pale lure!"That low man seeks a little thing to do,Sees it and does it:This high man, with a great thing to pursue,115Dies ere he knows it.That low man goes on adding one to one,His hundred's soon hit:This high man, aiming at a million,Misses an unit.120That, has the world here—should he need the next,Let the world mind him!This, throws himself on God, and unperplexedSeeking shall find him.So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,125Ground he at grammar;Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife:While he could stammerHe settledHoti'sbusiness—let it be!—Properly basedOun—130Gave us the doctrine of the encliticDe,Dead from the waist down.Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:Hail to your purlieus,All ye highfliers of the feathered race,135Swallows and curlews!Here's the top-peak; the multitude belowLive, for they can, there:This man decided not to Live but Know—Bury this man there?140Here—here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,Lightnings are loosened,Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,Peace let the dew send!Lofty designs must close in like effects:145Loftily lying,Leave him—still loftier than the world suspects,Living and dying.
Let us begin and carry up this corpse,Singing together.Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpesEach in its tetherSleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,5Cared-for till cock-crow;Look out if yonder be not day againRimming the rock-row!That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,Rarer, intenser,10Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,Chafes in the censer.Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;Seek we sepultureOn a tall mountain, citied to the top,15Crowded with culture!All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;Clouds overcome it;No! yonder sparkle is the citadel'sCircling its summit.20Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights;Wait ye the warning?Our low life was the level's and the night's;He's for the morning.Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,25'Ware the beholders!This is our master, famous, calm, and dead,Borne on our shoulders.
Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,Safe from the weather!30He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,Singing together,He was a man born with thy face and throat,Lyric Apollo!Long he lived nameless; how should Spring take note35Winter would follow?Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!Cramped and diminished,Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!My dance is finished"?40No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side,Make for the city!)He knew the signal, and stepped on with prideOver men's pity;Left play for work, and grappled with the world45Bent on escaping:"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled?Show me their shaping,Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage—Give!"—So, he gowned him,50Straight got by heart that book to its last page:Learned, we found him.Yea, but we found him bald, too, eyes like lead,Accents uncertain:"Time to taste life," another would have said,55"Up with the curtain!"This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?Patience a moment!Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,Still there's the comment.60Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,Painful or easy!Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,Aye, nor feel queasy."Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,65When he had learned it,When he had gathered all books had to give!Sooner, he spurned it.Image the whole, then execute the parts—Fancy the fabric70Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz.Ere mortar dab brick!
(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-placeGaping before us.)Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace75(Hearten our chorus!)That before living he'd learn how to live—No end to learning:Earn the means first—God surely will contriveUse for our earning.80Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes:Live now or never!"He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!Man has Forever."Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:85Calculusracked him:Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:Tussisattacked him."Now, master, take a little rest!"—not he!(Caution redoubled,90Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)Not a whit troubled,Back to his studies, fresher than at first,Fierce as a dragonHe (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)95Sucked at the flagon.Oh, if we draw a circle premature,Heedless of far gain,Greedy for quick returns of profit, sureBad is our bargain!100Was it not great? did not he throw on God,(He loves the burthen)—God's task to make the heavenly periodPerfect the earthen?Did not he magnify the mind, show clear105Just what it all meant?He would not discount life, as fools do here,Paid by installment.He ventured neck or nothing—heaven's successFound, or earth's failure:110"Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered, "Yes!Hence with life's pale lure!"That low man seeks a little thing to do,Sees it and does it:This high man, with a great thing to pursue,115Dies ere he knows it.That low man goes on adding one to one,His hundred's soon hit:This high man, aiming at a million,Misses an unit.120That, has the world here—should he need the next,Let the world mind him!This, throws himself on God, and unperplexedSeeking shall find him.So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,125Ground he at grammar;Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife:While he could stammerHe settledHoti'sbusiness—let it be!—Properly basedOun—130Gave us the doctrine of the encliticDe,Dead from the waist down.Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:Hail to your purlieus,All ye highfliers of the feathered race,135Swallows and curlews!Here's the top-peak; the multitude belowLive, for they can, there:This man decided not to Live but Know—Bury this man there?140Here—here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,Lightnings are loosened,Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,Peace let the dew send!Lofty designs must close in like effects:145Loftily lying,Leave him—still loftier than the world suspects,Living and dying.
My first thought was, he lied in every word,That hoary cripple, with malicious eyeAskance to watch the working of his lieOn mine, and mouth scarce able to affordSuppression of the glee, that pursed and scored5Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.What else should he be set for, with his staff?What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnareAll travelers who might find him posted there,And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh10Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaphFor pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,If at his counsel I should turn asideInto the ominous tract which, all agree,Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly15I did turn as he pointed: neither prideNor hope rekindling at the end descried,So much as gladness that some end might be.For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,What with my search drawn out through years, my hope20Dwindled into a ghost not fit to copeWith that obstreperous joy success would bring,I hardly tried now to rebuke the springMy heart made, finding failure in its scope.As when a sick man very near to death25Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and endThe tears, and takes the farewell of each friend,And hears one bid the other go, draw breathFreelier outside ("since all is o'er," he saith,"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend");30While some discuss if near the other gravesBe room enough for this, and when a daySuits best for carrying the corpse away,With care about the banners, scarves, and staves;And still the man hears all, and only craves35He may not shame such tender love and stay.Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writSo many times among "The Band"—to wit,The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed40Their steps—that just to fail as they, seemed best,And all the doubt was now—should I be fit?So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,That hateful cripple, out of his highwayInto the path he pointed. All the day45Had been a dreary one at best, and dimWas settling to its close, yet shot one grimRed leer to see the plain catch its estray.For mark! no sooner was I fairly foundPledged to the plain, after a pace or two,50Than, pausing to throw backward a last viewO'er the safe road, 'twas gone; gray plain all round:Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.I might go on; naught else remained to do.So, on I went. I think I never saw55Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve;For flowers—as well expect a cedar grove!But cockle, spurge, according to their lawMight propagate their kind, with none to awe,You'd think; a bur had been a treasure-trove.60No! penury, inertness, and grimace,In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "SeeOr shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,"It nothing skills; I cannot help my case;'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,65Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalkAbove its mates, the head was chopped; the bentsWere jealous else. What made those holes and rentsIn the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balk70All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walkPashing their life out, with a brute's intents.As for the grass, it grew as scant as hairIn leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mudWhich underneath looked kneaded up with blood.75One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,Stood stupefied, however he came there;Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!
My first thought was, he lied in every word,That hoary cripple, with malicious eyeAskance to watch the working of his lieOn mine, and mouth scarce able to affordSuppression of the glee, that pursed and scored5Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.
What else should he be set for, with his staff?What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnareAll travelers who might find him posted there,And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh10Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaphFor pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,
If at his counsel I should turn asideInto the ominous tract which, all agree,Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly15I did turn as he pointed: neither prideNor hope rekindling at the end descried,So much as gladness that some end might be.
For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,What with my search drawn out through years, my hope20Dwindled into a ghost not fit to copeWith that obstreperous joy success would bring,I hardly tried now to rebuke the springMy heart made, finding failure in its scope.As when a sick man very near to death25Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and endThe tears, and takes the farewell of each friend,And hears one bid the other go, draw breathFreelier outside ("since all is o'er," he saith,"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend");30
While some discuss if near the other gravesBe room enough for this, and when a daySuits best for carrying the corpse away,With care about the banners, scarves, and staves;And still the man hears all, and only craves35He may not shame such tender love and stay.
Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writSo many times among "The Band"—to wit,The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed40Their steps—that just to fail as they, seemed best,And all the doubt was now—should I be fit?
So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,That hateful cripple, out of his highwayInto the path he pointed. All the day45Had been a dreary one at best, and dimWas settling to its close, yet shot one grimRed leer to see the plain catch its estray.
For mark! no sooner was I fairly foundPledged to the plain, after a pace or two,50Than, pausing to throw backward a last viewO'er the safe road, 'twas gone; gray plain all round:Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.I might go on; naught else remained to do.
So, on I went. I think I never saw55Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve;For flowers—as well expect a cedar grove!But cockle, spurge, according to their lawMight propagate their kind, with none to awe,You'd think; a bur had been a treasure-trove.60
No! penury, inertness, and grimace,In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "SeeOr shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,"It nothing skills; I cannot help my case;'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,65Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."
If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalkAbove its mates, the head was chopped; the bentsWere jealous else. What made those holes and rentsIn the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balk70All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walkPashing their life out, with a brute's intents.
As for the grass, it grew as scant as hairIn leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mudWhich underneath looked kneaded up with blood.75One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,Stood stupefied, however he came there;Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!
Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,80And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;I never saw a brute I hated so;He must be wicked to deserve such pain.I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.85As a man calls for wine before he fights,I asked one draft of earlier, happier sights,Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.Think first, fight afterwards—the soldier's art;One taste of the old time sets all to rights.90Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening faceBeneath its garniture of curly gold,Dear fellow, till I almost felt him foldAn arm in mine to fix me to the place,That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!95Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.Giles then, the soul of honor—there he standsFrank as ten years ago when knighted first.What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.Good—but the scene shifts—faugh! what hangman hands100Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bandsRead it. Poor traitor, spit upon and cursed!Better this present than a past like that;Back therefore to my darkening path again!No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.105Will the night send a howlet or a bat?I asked; when something on the dismal flatCame to arrest my thoughts and change their train.A sudden little river crossed my pathAs unexpected as a serpent comes.110No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;This, as it frothed by, might have been a bathFor the fiend's glowing hoof—to see the wrathOf its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.So petty yet so spiteful! All along,115Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fitOf mute despair, a suicidal throng;The river which had done them all the wrong,Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.120Which, while I forded—good saints, how I fearedTo set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seekFor hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!It may have been a water-rat I speared,125But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.Glad was I when I reached the other bank.Now for a better country. Vain presage!Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage,Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank130Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage—
Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,80And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;I never saw a brute I hated so;He must be wicked to deserve such pain.
I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.85As a man calls for wine before he fights,I asked one draft of earlier, happier sights,Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.Think first, fight afterwards—the soldier's art;One taste of the old time sets all to rights.90
Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening faceBeneath its garniture of curly gold,Dear fellow, till I almost felt him foldAn arm in mine to fix me to the place,That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!95Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.
Giles then, the soul of honor—there he standsFrank as ten years ago when knighted first.What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.Good—but the scene shifts—faugh! what hangman hands100Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bandsRead it. Poor traitor, spit upon and cursed!
Better this present than a past like that;Back therefore to my darkening path again!No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.105Will the night send a howlet or a bat?I asked; when something on the dismal flatCame to arrest my thoughts and change their train.
A sudden little river crossed my pathAs unexpected as a serpent comes.110No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;This, as it frothed by, might have been a bathFor the fiend's glowing hoof—to see the wrathOf its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.
So petty yet so spiteful! All along,115Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fitOf mute despair, a suicidal throng;The river which had done them all the wrong,Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.120
Which, while I forded—good saints, how I fearedTo set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seekFor hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!It may have been a water-rat I speared,125But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.
Glad was I when I reached the other bank.Now for a better country. Vain presage!Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage,Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank130Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage—
The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?No footprint leading to that horrid mews,135None out of it. Mad brewage set to workTheir brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the TurkPits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.And more than that—a furlong on—why, there!What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,140Or brake, not wheel—that harrow fit to reelMen's bodies out like silk? with all the airOf Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware,Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,145Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earthDesperate and done with—so a fool finds mirth,Makes a thing and then mars it, till his moodChanges and off he goes!—within a rood,Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.150Now blotches rankling, colored gay and grim,Now patches where some leanness of the soil'sBroke into moss or substances like boils;Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in himLike a distorted mouth that splits its rim155Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.And just as far as ever from the end!Naught in the distance but the evening, naughtTo point my footstep further! At the thought,A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,160Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-pennedThat brushed my cap—perchance the guide I sought.For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given placeAll round to mountains—with such name to grace165Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.How thus they had surprised me—solve it, you!How to get from them was no clearer case.Yet half I seemed to recognize some trickOf mischief happened to me, God knows when—170In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then,Progress this way. When, in the very nickOf giving up, one time more, came a clickAs when a trap shuts—you're inside the den!Burningly it came on me all at once,175This was the place! those two hills on the right,Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;While to the left, a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce,Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,After a life spent training for the sight!180What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,Built of brown stone, without a counterpartIn the whole world. The tempest's mocking elfPoints to the shipman thus the unseen shelf185He strikes on, only when the timbers start.
The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?No footprint leading to that horrid mews,135None out of it. Mad brewage set to workTheir brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the TurkPits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.
And more than that—a furlong on—why, there!What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,140Or brake, not wheel—that harrow fit to reelMen's bodies out like silk? with all the airOf Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware,Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.
Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,145Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earthDesperate and done with—so a fool finds mirth,Makes a thing and then mars it, till his moodChanges and off he goes!—within a rood,Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.150
Now blotches rankling, colored gay and grim,Now patches where some leanness of the soil'sBroke into moss or substances like boils;Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in himLike a distorted mouth that splits its rim155Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.
And just as far as ever from the end!Naught in the distance but the evening, naughtTo point my footstep further! At the thought,A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,160Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-pennedThat brushed my cap—perchance the guide I sought.
For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given placeAll round to mountains—with such name to grace165Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.How thus they had surprised me—solve it, you!How to get from them was no clearer case.
Yet half I seemed to recognize some trickOf mischief happened to me, God knows when—170In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then,Progress this way. When, in the very nickOf giving up, one time more, came a clickAs when a trap shuts—you're inside the den!
Burningly it came on me all at once,175This was the place! those two hills on the right,Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;While to the left, a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce,Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,After a life spent training for the sight!180
What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,Built of brown stone, without a counterpartIn the whole world. The tempest's mocking elfPoints to the shipman thus the unseen shelf185He strikes on, only when the timbers start.
Not see? because of night perhaps?—why, dayCame back again for that! before it left,The dying sunset kindled through a cleft;The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,190Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay—"Now stab and end the creature—to the heft!"Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolledIncreasing like a bell. Names in my earsOf all the lost adventurers my peers—195How such a one was strong, and such was bold,And such was fortunate, yet each of oldLost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, metTo view the last of me, a living frame200For one more picture! in a sheet of flameI saw them and I knew them all. And yetDauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."
Not see? because of night perhaps?—why, dayCame back again for that! before it left,The dying sunset kindled through a cleft;The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,190Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay—"Now stab and end the creature—to the heft!"
Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolledIncreasing like a bell. Names in my earsOf all the lost adventurers my peers—195How such a one was strong, and such was bold,And such was fortunate, yet each of oldLost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.
There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, metTo view the last of me, a living frame200For one more picture! in a sheet of flameI saw them and I knew them all. And yetDauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."
I only knew one poet in my life:And this, or something like it, was his way.You saw go up and down Valladolid,A man of mark, to know next time you saw.His very serviceable suit of black5Was courtly once and conscientious still,And many might have worn it, though none did;The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads,Had purpose, and the ruff, significance.He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane,10Scenting the world, looking it full in face,An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels.They turned up, now, the alley by the church,That leads nowhither; now, they breathed themselvesOn the main promenade just at the wrong time;15You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat,Making a peaked shade blacker than itselfAgainst the single window spared some houseIntact yet with its moldered Moorish work—Or else surprise the ferrel of his stick20Trying the mortar's temper 'tween the chinksOf some new shop a-building, French and fine.He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade,The man who slices lemons into drink,The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys25That volunteer to help him turn its winch.He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye,And fly-leaf ballads on the vender's string,And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall.He took such cognizance of men and things,30If any beat a horse, you felt he saw;If any cursed a woman, he took note;Yet stared at nobody—you stared at him,And found, less to your pleasure than surprise,He seemed to know you and expect as much.35So, next time that a neighbor's tongue was loosed,It marked the shameful and notorious fact,We had among us, not so much a spy,As a recording chief-inquisitor,The town's true master if the town but knew!40We merely kept a governor for form,While this man walked about and took accountOf all thought, said and acted, then went home,And wrote it fully to our Lord the KingWho has an itch to know things, he knows why,45And reads them in his bedroom of a night.Oh, you might smile! there wanted not a touch,A tang of ... well, it was not wholly easeAs back into your mind the man's look came.Stricken in years a little—such a brow50His eyes had to live under!—clear as flintOn either side the formidable noseCurved, cut and colored like an eagle's claw.Had he to do with A's surprising fate?When altogether old B disappeared55And young C got his mistress—was't our friend,His letter to the King, that did it all?What paid the bloodless man for so much pains?Our Lord the King has favorites manifold,And shifts his ministry some once a month;60Our city gets new governors at whiles—But never word or sign, that I could hear,Notified to this man about the streetsThe King's approval of those letters connedThe last thing duly at the dead of night.65Did the man love his office? Frowned our Lord,Exhorting when none heard—"Beseech me not!Too far above my people—beneath me!I set the watch—how should the people know?Forget them, keep me all the more in mind!"70Was some such understanding 'twixt the two?I found no truth in one report at least—That if you tracked him to his home, down lanesBeyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace,You found he ate his supper in a room75Blazing with lights, four Titians on the walls,And twenty naked girls to change his plate!Poor man, he lived another kind of lifeIn that new stuccoed third house by the bridge,Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise!80The whole street might o'erlook him as he sat,Leg crossing leg, one foot on the dog's back,Playing a decent cribbage with his maid(Jacynth, you're sure her name was) o'er the cheeseAnd fruit, three red halves of starved winter-pears,85Or treat of radishes in April. Nine,Ten, struck the church clock, straight to bed went he.My father, like the man of sense he was,Would point him out to me a dozen times;"'St—'St," he'd whisper, "the Corregidor!"90I had been used to think that personageWas one with lacquered breeches, lustrous belt,And feathers like a forest in his hat,Who blew a trumpet and proclaimed the news,Announced the bull-fights, gave each church its turn,95And memorized the miracle in vogue!He had a great observance from us boys;We were in error; that was not the man.I'd like now, yet had haply been afraid,To have just looked, when this man came to die,100And seen who lined the clean gay garret-sidesAnd stood about the neat low truckle-bed,With the heavenly manner of relieving guard.Here had been, mark, the general-in-chief,Through a whole campaign of the world's life and death,105Doing the King's work all the dim day long,In his old coat and up to knees in mud,Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust—And, now the day was won, relieved at once!No further show or need for that old coat,110You are sure, for one thing! Bless us, all the whileHow sprucely we are dressed out, you and I!A second, and the angels alter that.Well, I could never write a verse—could you?Let's to the Prado and make the most of time.115
I only knew one poet in my life:And this, or something like it, was his way.
You saw go up and down Valladolid,A man of mark, to know next time you saw.His very serviceable suit of black5Was courtly once and conscientious still,And many might have worn it, though none did;The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads,Had purpose, and the ruff, significance.He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane,10Scenting the world, looking it full in face,An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels.They turned up, now, the alley by the church,That leads nowhither; now, they breathed themselvesOn the main promenade just at the wrong time;15You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat,Making a peaked shade blacker than itselfAgainst the single window spared some houseIntact yet with its moldered Moorish work—Or else surprise the ferrel of his stick20Trying the mortar's temper 'tween the chinksOf some new shop a-building, French and fine.He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade,The man who slices lemons into drink,The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys25That volunteer to help him turn its winch.He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye,And fly-leaf ballads on the vender's string,And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall.He took such cognizance of men and things,30If any beat a horse, you felt he saw;If any cursed a woman, he took note;Yet stared at nobody—you stared at him,And found, less to your pleasure than surprise,He seemed to know you and expect as much.35So, next time that a neighbor's tongue was loosed,It marked the shameful and notorious fact,We had among us, not so much a spy,As a recording chief-inquisitor,The town's true master if the town but knew!40We merely kept a governor for form,While this man walked about and took accountOf all thought, said and acted, then went home,And wrote it fully to our Lord the KingWho has an itch to know things, he knows why,45And reads them in his bedroom of a night.Oh, you might smile! there wanted not a touch,A tang of ... well, it was not wholly easeAs back into your mind the man's look came.Stricken in years a little—such a brow50His eyes had to live under!—clear as flintOn either side the formidable noseCurved, cut and colored like an eagle's claw.Had he to do with A's surprising fate?When altogether old B disappeared55And young C got his mistress—was't our friend,His letter to the King, that did it all?What paid the bloodless man for so much pains?Our Lord the King has favorites manifold,And shifts his ministry some once a month;60Our city gets new governors at whiles—But never word or sign, that I could hear,Notified to this man about the streetsThe King's approval of those letters connedThe last thing duly at the dead of night.65Did the man love his office? Frowned our Lord,Exhorting when none heard—"Beseech me not!Too far above my people—beneath me!I set the watch—how should the people know?Forget them, keep me all the more in mind!"70Was some such understanding 'twixt the two?
I found no truth in one report at least—That if you tracked him to his home, down lanesBeyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace,You found he ate his supper in a room75Blazing with lights, four Titians on the walls,And twenty naked girls to change his plate!Poor man, he lived another kind of lifeIn that new stuccoed third house by the bridge,Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise!80The whole street might o'erlook him as he sat,Leg crossing leg, one foot on the dog's back,Playing a decent cribbage with his maid(Jacynth, you're sure her name was) o'er the cheeseAnd fruit, three red halves of starved winter-pears,85Or treat of radishes in April. Nine,Ten, struck the church clock, straight to bed went he.
My father, like the man of sense he was,Would point him out to me a dozen times;"'St—'St," he'd whisper, "the Corregidor!"90I had been used to think that personageWas one with lacquered breeches, lustrous belt,And feathers like a forest in his hat,Who blew a trumpet and proclaimed the news,Announced the bull-fights, gave each church its turn,95And memorized the miracle in vogue!He had a great observance from us boys;We were in error; that was not the man.
I'd like now, yet had haply been afraid,To have just looked, when this man came to die,100And seen who lined the clean gay garret-sidesAnd stood about the neat low truckle-bed,With the heavenly manner of relieving guard.Here had been, mark, the general-in-chief,Through a whole campaign of the world's life and death,105Doing the King's work all the dim day long,In his old coat and up to knees in mud,Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust—And, now the day was won, relieved at once!No further show or need for that old coat,110You are sure, for one thing! Bless us, all the whileHow sprucely we are dressed out, you and I!A second, and the angels alter that.Well, I could never write a verse—could you?Let's to the Prado and make the most of time.115