Chapter CV: Epilogue (5)

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge;
Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar
Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way.
Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across:
"Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse?
Athens to aid? Though the dive were through Erebos, thus I obey--
Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No bridge
Better!"--when--ha! what was it I came on, of wonders that are?

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he--majestical Pan!
Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof:
All the great god was good in the eyes grave-kindly--the curl
Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe,
As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw.
"Halt, Pheidippides!"--halt I did, my brain of a whirl:
"Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?" he gracious began:
"How is it,--Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?

"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast!
Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old?
Ay, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me!
Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith
In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, 'The Goat-God saith:
When Persia--so much as strews not the soil--is cast in the sea,
Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least,
Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and the
bold!'

"Say Pan saith: 'Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!'"
(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear
--Fennel--I grasped it a-tremble with dew--whatever it bode)
"While, as for thee" ... But enough! He was gone. If I ran
hitherto--
Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but flew.
Parnes to Athens--earth no more, the air was my road:
Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor's edge!
Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare!

Then spoke Miltiades. "And thee, best runner of Greece,
Whose limbs did duty indeed,--what gift is promised thyself?
Tell it us straightway,--Athens the mother demands of her son!"
Rosily blushed the youth: he paused: but, lifting at length
His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his
strength
Into the utterance--"Pan spoke thus: 'For what thou hast done
Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee release
From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!'

"I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my mind!
Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel may grow,--
Pound--Pan helping us--Persia to dust, and, under the deep,
Whelm her away forever; and then,--no Athens to save,--
Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave,--
Hie to my house and home: and, when my children shall creep
Close to my knees,--recount how the God was awful yet kind,
Promised their sire reward to the full--rewarding him--so!"

Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day:
So, when Persia was dust, all cried "To Akropolis!
Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!
'Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout!" He flung down his shield,
Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the Fennel-field
And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through,
Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine through clay,
Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute
Is still "Rejoice!"--his word which brought rejoicing indeed.
So is Pheidippides happy forever,--the noble strong man
Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, whom a god loved
so well;
He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to
tell
Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began,
So to end gloriously--once to shout, thereafter be mute:
"Athens is saved!"--Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed.

HALBERT AND HOB

Here is a thing that happened. Like wild beasts whelped, for den,
In a wild part of North England, there lived once two wild men
Inhabiting one homestead, neither a hovel nor hut,
Time out of mind their birthright: father and son, these--but--
Such a son, such a father! Most wildness by degrees
Softens away: yet, last of their line, the wildest and worst were
these.

Criminals, then? Why, no: they did not murder and rob;
But, give them a word, they returned a blow--old Halbert as young
Hob:
Harsh and fierce of word, rough and savage of deed,
Hated or feared the more--who knows?--the genuine wild-beast breed.

Thus were they found by the few sparse folk of the countryside;
But how fared each with other? E'en beasts couch, hide by hide,
In a growling, grudged agreement: so, father and son aye curled
The closelier up in their den because the last of their kind in the
world.

Still, beast irks beast on occasion. One Christmas night of snow,
Came father and son to words--such words! more cruel because the
blow
To crown each word was wanting, while taunt matched gibe, and curse
Competed with oath in wager, like pastime in hell,--nay, worse:
For pastime turned to earnest, as up there sprang at last
The son at the throat of the father, seized him and held him fast.

"Out of this house you go!" (there followed a hideous oath)--
"This oven where now we bake, too hot to hold us both!
If there's snow outside, there's coolness: out with you, bide a
spell
In the drift and save the sexton the charge of a parish shell!"

Now, the old trunk was tough, was solid as stump of oak
Untouched at the core by a thousand years: much less had its seventy
broke
One whipcord nerve in the muscly mass from neck to shoulder-blade
Of the mountainous man, whereon his child's rash hand like a feather
weighed.

Nevertheless at once did the mammoth shut his eyes,
Drop chin to breast, drop hands to sides, stand stiffened--arms and
thighs
All of a piece--struck mute, much as a sentry stands,
Patient to take the enemy's fire: his captain so commands.

Whereat the son's wrath flew to fury at such sheer scorn
Of his puny strength by the giant eld thus acting the babe new-born:
And "Neither will this turn serve!" yelled he. "Out with you!
Trundle, log!
If you cannot tramp and trudge like a man, try all-fours like a
dog!"

Still the old man stood mute. So, logwise,--down to floor
Pulled from his fireside place, dragged on from hearth to door,--
Was he pushed, a very log, staircase along, until
A certain turn in the steps was reached, a yard from the
house-door-sill.

Then the father opened eyes--each spark of their rage extinct,--
Temples, late black, dead-blanched,--right-hand with left-hand
linked,--
He faced his son submissive; when slow the accents came,
They were strangely mild though his son's rash hand on his neck lay
all the same.

"Hob, on just such a night of a Christmas long ago,
For such a cause, with such a gesture, did I drag--so--
My father down thus far: but, softening here, I heard
A voice in my heart, and stopped: you wait for an outer word,

"For your own sake, not mine, soften you too! Untrod
Leave this last step we reach, nor brave the finger of God!
I dared not pass its lifting: I did well. I nor blame
Nor praise you. I stopped here: and, Hob, do you the same!"

Straightway the son relaxed his hold of the father's throat.
They mounted, side by side, to the room again: no note
Took either of each, no sign made each to either: last
As first, in absolute silence, their Christmas-night they passed.

At dawn, the father sate on, dead, in the selfsame place,
With an outburst blackening still the old bad fighting-face:
But the son crouched all a-tremble like any lamb new-yeaned.

When he went to the burial, some one's staff he borrowed,--tottered
and leaned.
But his lips were loose, not locked,--kept muttering, mumbling.
"There!
At his cursing and swearing!" the youngsters cried: but the elders
thought "In prayer."
A boy threw stones: he picked them up and stored them in his vest.

So tottered, muttered, mumbled he, till he died, perhaps found rest.
"Is there a reason in nature for these hard hearts?" O Lear,
That a reason out of nature must turn them soft, seems clear!

IVÀN IVÀNOVITCH

"They tell me, your carpenters," quoth I to my friend the Russ,
"Make a simple hatchet serve as a tool-box serves with us.
Arm but each man with his axe, 'tis a hammer and saw and plane
And chisel, and--what know I else? We should imitate in vain
The mastery wherewithal, by a flourish of just the adze,
He cleaves, clamps, dovetails in,--no need of our nails and brads,--
The manageable pine: 'tis said he could shave himself
With the axe,--so all adroit, now a giant and now an elf,
Does he work and play at once!"

Quoth my friend the Russ to me,
"Ay, that and more beside on occasion! It scarce may be
You never heard tell a tale told children, time out of mind,
By father and mother and nurse, for a moral that's behind,
Which children quickly seize. If the incident happened at all,
We place it in Peter's time when hearts were great not small,
Germanized, Frenchified. I wager 'tis old to you
As the story of Adam and Eve, and possibly quite as true."

* * * * *

In the deep of our land, 't is said, a village from out the woods
Emerged on the great main-road 'twixt two great solitudes.
Through forestry right and left, black verst and verst of pine,
From village to village runs the road's long wide bare line.
Clearance and clearance break the else-unconquered growth
Of pine and all that breeds and broods there, leaving loth
Man's inch of masterdom,--spot of life, spirt of fire,--
To star the dark and dread, lest right and rule expire
Throughout the monstrous wild, a-hungered to resume
Its ancient sway, suck back the world into its womb:
Defrauded by man's craft which clove from North to South
This highway broad and straight e'en from the Neva's mouth
To Moscow's gates of gold. So, spot of life and spirt
Of fire aforesaid, burn, each village death-begirt
By wall and wall of pine--unprobed undreamed abyss.

Early one winter morn, in such a village as this,
Snow-whitened everywhere except the middle road
Ice-roughed by track of sledge, there worked by his abode
Ivàn Ivànovitch, the carpenter, employed
On a huge shipmast trunk; his axe now trimmed and toyed
With branch and twig, and now some chop athwart the hole
Changed bole to billets, bared at once the sap and soul.
About him, watched the work his neighbors sheepskin-clad;
Each bearded mouth puffed steam, each gray eye twinkled glad
To see the sturdy arm which, never stopping play,
Proved strong man's blood still boils, freeze winter as he may.
Sudden, a burst of bells. Out of the road, on edge
Of the hamlet--horse's hoofs galloping. "How, a sledge?
What's here?" cried all as--in, up to the open space,
Workyard and market-ground, folk's common meeting-place,--
Stumbled on, till he fell, in one last bound for life,
A horse: and, at his heels, a sledge held--"Dmìtri's wife!
Back without Dmitri too! and children--where are they?
Only a frozen corpse!"

They drew it forth: then--"Nay,
Not dead, though like to die! Gone hence a month ago:
Home again, this rough jaunt--alone through night and snow--
What can the cause be? Hark--Droug, old horse, how he groans:
His day's done! Chafe away, keep chafing, for she moans:
She's coming to! Give here: see, motherkin, your friends!
Cheer up, all safe at home! Warm inside makes amends
For outside cold,--sup quick! Don't look as we were bears!
What is it startles you? What strange adventure stares
Up at us in your face? You know friends--which is which?
I'm Vàssili, he's Sergeì, Ivàn Ivànovitch"--

At the word, the woman's eyes, slow-wandering till they neared
The blue eyes o'er the bush of honey-colored beard,
Took in full light and sense and--torn to rags, some dream
Which hid the naked truth--O loud and long the scream
She gave, as if all power of voice within her throat
Poured itself wild away to waste in one dread note!
Then followed gasps and sobs, and then the steady flow
Of kindly tears: the brain was saved, a man might know.
Down fell her face upon the good friend's propping knee;
His broad hands smoothed her head, as fain to brush it free
From fancies, swarms that stung like bees unhived. He soothed--
"Loukèria, Loùscha!"--still he, fondling, smoothed and smoothed.
At last her lips formed speech.

"Ivàn, dear--you indeed!
You, just the same dear you! While I ... Oh, intercede,
Sweet Mother, with thy Son Almighty--let his might
Bring yesterday once more, undo all done last night!
But this time yesterday, Ivàn, I sat like you,
A child on either knee, and, dearer than the two,
A babe inside my arms, close to my heart--that's lost
In morsels o'er the snow! Father, Son, Holy Ghost,
Cannot you bring again my blessed yesterday?"

When no more tears would flow, she told her tale: this way.

"Maybe, a month ago,--was it not?--news came here,
They wanted, deeper down, good workmen fit to rear
A church and roof it in. 'We'll go,' my husband said:
'None understands like me to melt and mould their lead.'
So, friends here helped us off--Ivàn, dear, you the first!
How gay we jingled forth, all five--(my heart will burst)--
While Dmìtri shook the reins, urged Droug upon his track!

"Well, soon the month ran out, we just were coming back,
When yesterday--behold, the village was on fire!
Fire ran from house to house. What help, as, nigh and nigher,
The flames came furious? 'Haste,' cried Dmìtri, 'men must do
The little good man may: to sledge and in with you,
You and our three! We check the fire by laying flat
Each building in its path,--I needs must stay for that,--
But you ... no time for talk! Wrap round you every rug,
Cover the couple close,--you'll have the babe to hug.
No care to guide old Droug, he knows his way, by guess,
Once start him on the road: but chirrup, none the less!
The snow lies glib as glass and hard as steel, and soon
You'll have rise, fine and full, a marvel of a moon.
Hold straight up, all the same, this lighted twist of pitch!
Once home and with our friend Ivàn Ivànovitch,
All's safe: I have my pay in pouch, all's right with me,
So I but find as safe you and our precious three!
Off, Droug!'--because the flames had reached us, and the men
Shouted 'But lend a hand, Dmìtri--as good as ten!'

"So, in we bundled--I, and those God gave me once;
Old Droug, that's stiff at first, seemed youthful for the nonce:
He understood the case, galloping straight ahead.
Out came the moon: my twist soon dwindled, feebly red
In that unnatural day--yes, daylight, bred between
Moonlight and snow-light, lamped those grotto-depths which screen
Such devils from God's eye. Ah, pines, how straight you grow,
Nor bend one pitying branch, true breed of brutal snow!
Some undergrowth had served to keep the devils blind
While we escaped outside their border!

"Was that--wind?
Anyhow, Droug starts, stops, back go his ears, he snuffs,
Snorts,--never such a snort! then plunges, knows the sough's
Only the wind: yet, no--our breath goes up too straight!
Still the low sound,--less low, loud, louder, at a rate
There's no mistaking more! Shall I lean out--look--learn
The truth whatever it be? Pad, pad! At last, I turn--

"'T is the regular pad of the wolves in pursuit of the life in the
sledge!
An army they are: close-packed they press like the thrust of a
wedge:
They increase as they hunt: for I see, through the pine-trunks
ranged each side,
Slip forth new fiend and fiend, make wider and still more wide
The four-footed steady advance. The foremost--none may pass:
They are elders and lead the line, eye and eye--green-glowing brass!
But a long way distant still. Droug, save us! He does his best:
Yet they gain on us, gain, till they reach,--one reaches ... How
utter the rest?
O that Satan-faced first of the band! How he lolls out the length of
his tongue,
How he laughs and lets gleam his white teeth! He is on me, his paws
pry among
The wraps and the rags! O my pair, my twin-pigeons, lie still and
seem dead!
Stepàn, he shall never have you for a meal,--here's your mother
instead!
No, he will not be counselled--must cry, poor Stiòpka, so foolish!
though first
Of my boy-brood, he was not the best: nay, neighbors have called him
the worst:
He was puny, an undersized slip,--a darling to me, all the same!
But little there was to be praised in the boy, and a plenty to
blame.
I loved him with heart and soul, yes---but deal him a blow for a
fault,
He would sulk for whole days. 'Foolish boy! lie still or the villain
will vault,
Will snatch you from over my head!' No use! he cries, screams,--who
can hold
Fast a boy in a frenzy of fear! It follows--as I foretold!
The Satan-face snatched and snapped: I tugged, I tore--and then
His brother too needs must shriek! If one must go, 't is men
The Tsar needs, so we hear, not ailing boys! Perhaps
My hands relaxed their grasp, got tangled in the wraps:
God, he was gone! I looked: there tumbled the cursed crew,
Each fighting for a share: too busy to pursue!
That's so far gain at least: Droug, gallop another verst
Or two, or three--God sends we beat them, arrive the first!
A mother who boasts two boys was ever accounted rich:
Some have not a boy: some have, but lose him,--God knows which
Is worse: how pitiful to see your weakling pine
And pale and pass away! Strong brats, this pair of mine!

"O misery! for while I settle to what near seems
Content, I am 'ware again of the tramp, and again there gleams--
Point and point--the line, eyes, levelled green brassy fire!
So soon is resumed your chase? Will nothing appease, naught tire
The furies? And yet I think--I am certain the race is slack,
And the numbers are nothing like. Not a quarter of the pack!
Feasters and those full-fed are staying behind ... Ah, why?
We'll sorrow for that too soon! Now,--gallop, reach home, and die,
Nor ever again leave house, to trust our life in the trap
For life--we call a sledge! Teriòscha, in my lap!
Yes, I'll lie down upon you, tight-tie you with the strings
Here--of my heart! No fear, this time, your mother flings ...
Flings? I flung? Never! But think!--a woman, after all,
Contending with a wolf! Save you I must and shall,
Terentiì!
"How now? What, you still head the race,
Your eyes and tongue and teeth crave fresh food, Satan-face?
There and there! Plain I struck green fire out! Flash again?
All a poor fist can do to damage eyes proves vain!
My fist--why not crunch that? He is wanton for ... O God,
Why give this wolf his taste? Common wolves scrape and prod
The earth till out they scratch some corpse--mere putrid flesh!
Why must this glutton leave the faded, choose the fresh?
Terentiì--God, feel!--his neck keeps fast thy bag
Of holy things, saints' bones, this Satan-face will drag
Forth, and devour along with him, our Pope declared
The relics were to save from danger!

"Spurned, not spared!
'Twas through my arms, crossed arms, he--nuzzling now with snout,
Now ripping, tooth and claw--plucked, pulled Terentiì out,
A prize indeed! I saw--how could I else but see?--
My precious one--I bit to hold back--pulled from me!
Up came the others, fell to dancing--did the imps!--
Skipped as they scampered round. There's one is gray, and limps:
Who knows but old bad Màrpha--she always owed me spite
And envied me my births--skulks out of doors at night
And turns into a wolf, and joins the sisterhood,
And laps the youthful life, then slinks from out the wood,
Squats down at door by dawn, spins there demure as erst
--No strength, old crone,--not she!--to crawl forth half a verst!

"Well, I escaped with one: 'twixt one and none there lies
The space 'twixt heaven and hell. And see, a rose-light dyes
The endmost snow: 'tis dawn, 'tis day, 'tis safe at home!
We have outwitted you! Ay, monsters, snarl and foam,
Fight each the other fiend, disputing for a share,--
Forgetful, in your greed, our finest off we hear,
Tough Droug and I,--my babe, my boy that shall be man,
My man that shall be more, do all a hunter can
To trace and follow and find and catch and crucify
Wolves, wolfkins, all your crew! A thousand deaths shall die
The whimperingest cub that ever squeezed the teat!
'Take that!' we'll stab you with,--'the tenderness we met
When, wretches, you danced round,--not this, thank God--not this!
Hellhounds, we balk you!'

"But--Ah, God above!--Bliss, bliss,--
Not the band, no! And yet--yes, for Droug knows him! One--
This only of them all has said 'She saves a son!'
His fellows disbelieve such luck: but he believes,
He lets them pick the bones, laugh at him in their sleeves:
He 's off and after us,--one speck, one spot, one ball
Grows bigger, bound on bound,--one wolf as good as all!
Oh, but I know the trick! Have at the snaky tongue!
That 's the right way with wolves! Go, tell your mates I wrung
The panting morsel out, left you to howl your worst!
Now for it--now! Ah me! I know him--thrice-accurst
Satan-face,--him to the end my foe!

"All fight 's in vain:
This time the green brass points pierce to my very brain.
I fall--fall as I ought--quite on the babe I guard:
I overspread with flesh the whole of him. Too hard
To die this way, torn piecemeal? Move hence? Not I--one inch!
Gnaw through me, through and through: flat thus I lie nor flinch!
O God, the feel of the fang furrowing my shoulder!--see!
It grinds--it grates the bone. O Kìrill under me,
Could I do more? Besides he knew wolf's way to win:
I clung, closed round like wax: yet in he wedged and in,
Past my neck, past my breasts, my heart, until ... how feels
The onion-bulb your knife parts, pushing through its peels,
Till out you scoop its clove wherein lie stalk and leaf
And bloom and seed unborn?

"That slew me: yes, in brief,
I died then, dead I lay doubtlessly till Droug stopped
Here, I suppose. I come to life, I find me propped
Thus,--how or when or why--I know not. Tell me, friends,
All was a dream: laugh quick and say the nightmare ends!
Soon I shall find my house: 't is over there: in proof,
Save for that chimney heaped with snow, you 'd see the roof
Which holds my three--my two--my one--not one?

"Life 's mixed
With misery, yet we live--must live. The Satan fixed
His face on mine so fast, I took its print as pitch
Takes what it cools beneath. Ivàn Ivànovitch,
'T is you unharden me, you thaw, disperse the thing!
Only keep looking kind, the horror will not cling.
Your face smooths fast away each print of Satan. Tears
--What good they do! Life 's sweet, and all its after-years,
Ivàn Ivànovitch, I owe you! Yours am I!
May God reward you, dear!"

Down she sank. Solemnly
Ivàn rose, raised his axe,--for fitly, as she knelt,
Her head lay: well-apart, each side, her arms hung,--dealt
Lightning-swift thunder-strong one blow--no need of more!
Headless she knelt on still: that pine was sound at core
(Neighbors were used to say)--cast-iron-kernelled--which
Taxed for a second stroke Ivàn Ivànovitch.

The man was scant of words as strokes. "It had to be:
I could no other: God it was, bade 'Act for me!'"
Then stooping, peering round--what is it now he lacks?
A proper strip of bark wherewith to wipe his axe.
Which done, he turns, goes in, closes the door behind.
The others mute remain, watching the blood-snake wind
Into a hiding-place among the splinter-heaps.

At length, still mute, all move: one lifts--from where it steeps
Redder each ruddy rag of pine--the head: two more
Take up the dripping body: then, mute still as before,
Move in a sort of march, march on till marching ends
Opposite to the church; where halting,--who suspends,
By its long hair, the thing, deposits in its place
The piteous head: once more the body shows no trace
Of harm done: there lies whole the Loùscha, maid and wife
And mother, loved until this latest of her life.
Then all sit on the bank of snow which bounds a space
Kept free before the porch of judgment: just the place!

Presently all the souls, man, woman, child, which make
The village up, are found assembling for the sake
Of what is to be done. The very Jews are there:
A Gypsy-troop, though bound with horses for the Fair,
Squats with the rest. Each heart with its conception seethes
And simmers, but no tongue speaks: one may say,--none breathes.

Anon from out the church totters the Pope--the priest--
Hardly alive, so old, a hundred years at least.
With him, the Commune's head, a hoary senior too,
Stàrosta, that 's his style,--like Equity Judge with you,--
Natural Jurisconsult: then, fenced about with furs,
Pomeschìk,--Lord of the Land, who wields--and none demurs--
A power of life and death. They stoop, survey the corpse.

Then, straightened on his staff, the Stàrosta--the thorpe's
Sagaciousest old man--hears what you just have heard,
From Droug's first inrush, all, up to Ivàn's last word--
"God bade me act for him: I dared not disobey!"

Silence--the Pomeschìk broke with "A wild wrong way
Of righting wrong--if wrong there were, such wrath to rouse!
Why was not law observed? What article allows
Whoso may please to play the judge, and, judgment dealt,
Play executioner, as promptly as we pelt
To death, without appeal, the vermin whose sole fault
Has been--it dared to leave the darkness of its vault,
Intrude upon our day! Too sudden and too rash!
What was this woman's crime? Suppose the church should crash
Down where I stand, your lord: bound are my serfs to dare
Their utmost that I 'scape: yet, if the crashing scare
My children--as you are,--if sons fly, one and all,
Leave father to his fate,--poor cowards though I call
The runaways, I pause before I claim their life
Because they prized it more than mine. I would each wife
Died for her husband's sake, each son to save his sire:
'T is glory, I applaud--scarce duty, I require.
Ivàn Ivànovitch has done a deed that 's named
Murder by law and me: who doubts, may speak unblamed!"

All turned to the old Pope. "Ay, children, I am old--
How old, myself have got to know no longer. Rolled
Quite round, my orb of life, from infancy to age,
Seems passing back again to youth. A certain stage
At least I reach, or dream I reach, where I discern
Truer truths, laws behold more lawlike than we learn
When first we set our foot to tread the course I trod
With man to guide my steps: who leads me now is God.
'Your young men shall see visions:' and in my youth I saw
And paid obedience to man's visionary law:
'Your old men shall dream dreams:' and, in my age, a hand
Conducts me through the cloud round law to where I stand
Firm on its base,--know cause, who, before, knew effect.

"The world lies under me: and nowhere I detect
So great a gift as this--God's own--of human life.
'Shall the dead praise thee?' No! 'The whole live world is rife,
God, with thy glory,' rather! Life then, God's best of gifts,
For what shall man exchange? For life--when so he shifts
The weight and turns the scale, lets life for life restore
God's balance, sacrifice the less to gain the more,
Substitute--for low life, another's or his own--
Life large and liker God's who gave it: thus alone
May life extinguish life that life may trulier be!
How low this law descends on earth, is not for me
To trace: complexed becomes the simple, intricate
The plain, when I pursue law's winding. 'T is the straight
Outflow of law I know and name: to law, the fount
Fresh from God's footstool, friends, follow while I remount.

"A mother bears a child: perfection is complete
So far in such a birth. Enabled to repeat
The miracle of life,--herself was born so just
A type of womankind, that God sees fit to trust
Her with the holy task of giving life in turn.
Crowned by this crowning pride, how say you, should she spurn
Regality--discrowned, unchilded, by her choice
Of barrenness exchanged for fruit which made rejoice
Creation, though life's self were lost in giving birth
To life more fresh and fit to glorify God's earth?
How say you, should the hand God trusted with life's torch
Kindled to light the world--aware of sparks that scorch,
Let fall the same? Forsooth, her flesh a fire-flake stings:
The mother drops the child! Among what monstrous things
Shall she he classed? Because of motherhood, each male
Yields to his partner place, sinks proudly in the scale:
His strength owned weakness, wit--folly, and courage--fear,
Beside the female proved male's mistress--only here.
The fox-dam, hunger-pined, will slay the felon sire
Who dares assault her whelp: the beaver, stretched on fire,
Will die-without a groan: no pang avails to wrest
Her young from where they hide--her sanctuary breast.
What 's here then? Answer me, thou dead one, as, I trow,
Standing at God's own bar, he bids thee answer now!
Thrice crowned wast thou--each crown of pride, a child--thy charge!
Where are they? Lost? Enough: no need that thou enlarge
On how or why the loss: life left to utter 'lost'
Condemns itself beyond appeal. The soldier's post
Guards from the foe's attack the camp he sentinels:
That he no traitor proved, this and this only tells--
Over the corpse of him trod foe to foe's success.
Yet--one by one thy crowns torn from thee--thou no less
To scare the world, shame God,--livedst! I hold he saw
The unexampled sin, ordained the novel law,
Whereof first instrument was first intelligence
Found loyal here. I hold that, failing human sense,
The very earth had oped, sky fallen, to efface
Humanity's new wrong, motherhood's first disgrace.
Earth oped not, neither fell the sky, for prompt was found
A man and mar enough, head-sober and heart-sound,
Ready to hear God's voice, resolute to obey.
Ivàn Ivànovitch, I hold, has done, this day,
No otherwise than did, in ages long ago,
Moses when he made known the purport of that flow
Of fire athwart the law's twain-tables! I proclaim
Ivàn Ivànovitch God's servant!"

At which name
Uprose that creepy whisper from out the crowd, is wont,
To swell and surge and sink when fellow-men confront
A punishment that falls on fellow flesh and blood,
Appallingly beheld--shudderingly understood,
No less, to be the right, the just, the merciful.
"God's servant!" hissed the crowd.

When the Amen grew dull
And died away and left acquittal plain adjudged,
"Amen!" last sighed the lord. "There 's none shall say I grudged
Escape from punishment in such a novel case.
Deferring to old age and holy life,--be grace
Granted! say I. No less, scruples might shake a sense
Firmer than I boast mine. Law 's law, and evidence
Of breach therein lies plain,--blood-red-bright,--all may see!
Yet all absolve the deed: absolved the deed must be!

"And next--as mercy rules the hour--methinks 't were well
You signify forthwith its sentence, and dispel
The doubts and fears, I judge, which busy now the head
Law puts a halter round--a halo--you, instead!
Ivàn Ivànovitch--what think you he expects
Will follow from his feat? Go, tell him--law protects
Murder, for once: no need he longer keep behind
The Sacred Pictures--where skulks Innocence enshrined,
Or I missay! Go, some! You others, haste and hide
The dismal object there: get done, whate'er betide!"

So, while the youngers raised the corpse, the elders trooped
Silently to the house: where halting, some one stooped,
Listened beside the door; all there was silent too.
Then they held counsel; then pushed door and, passing through,
Stood in the murderer's presence.

Ivàn Ivànovitch
Knelt, building on the floor that Kremlin rare and rich
He deftly cut and carved on lazy winter nights.
Some five young faces watched, breathlessly, as, to rights,
Piece upon piece, he reared the fabric nigh complete.
Stèscha, Ivàn's old mother, sat spinning by the heat
Of the oven where his wife Kàtia stood baking bread.
Ivàn's self, as he turned his honey-colored head,
Was just in act to drop, 'twixt fir-cones,--each a dome,--
The scooped-out yellow gourd presumably the home
Of Kolokol the Big: the bell, therein to hitch,
--An acorn-cup--was ready: Ivàn Ivànovitch
Turned with it in his mouth.

They told him he was free
As air to walk abroad. "How otherwise?" asked he.

TRAY

This poem describes an actual incident witnessed in Paris by a friend of Browning's, and with accuracy of detail. The poem was written as a protest against vivisection, which the poet called "an infamous practice." He was early associated with Miss Frances Power Cobbe in her efforts to prevent vivisection; and he was a vice-president of the "Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals." Dr. Berdoe says, "He always expressed the utmost abhorrence of the practices which it opposes." To Miss Cobbe he wrote in 1874: "You have heard, 'I take an equal interest with yourself in the effort to suppress vivisection.' I dare not so honor my mere wishes and prayers as to put them for a moment beside your noble acts; but this I know, I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of sparing me a twinge or two." He goes even so far as to say that the person not willing to sign the petition against vivisection certainly could not be numbered among his friends. To Miss Stackpoole he wrote in April, 1883: "I despise and abhor the pleas on behalf of that infamous practice, vivisection." G. W. COOKE.

Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst
Of soul, ye bards!

Quoth Bard the first:
"Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don
His helm and eke his habergeon" ...
Sir Olaf and his bard ----!

"That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the second),
"That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned
My hero to some steep, beneath
Which precipice smiled tempting death" ...
You too without your host have reckoned!

"A beggar-child" (let 's hear this third!)
"Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird
Sang to herself at careless play,
And fell into the stream. 'Dismay!
Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred.

"Bystanders reason, think of wives
And children ere they risk their lives.
Over the balustrade has bounced
A mere instinctive dog, and pounced
Plumb on the prize. 'How well he dives!

"'Up he comes with the child, see, tight
In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite
A depth of ten feet--twelve, I bet!
Good dog! What, off again? There 's yet
Another child to save? All right!'

"How strange we saw no other fall!
It 's instinct in the animal.
Good dog! But he 's a long while under:
If he got drowned I should not wonder--
Strong current, that against the wall!

"'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time
--What may the thing be? Well, that 's prime!
Now, did you ever? Reason reigns
In man alone, since all Tray's pains
Have fished--the child's doll from the slime!'

"And so, amid the laughter gay,
Trotted my hero off,--old Tray,--
Till somebody, prerogatived
With reason, reasoned: 'Why he dived,
His brain would show us, I should say.

"'John, go and catch--or, if needs be,
Purchase--that animal for me!
By vivisection, at expense
Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence,
How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'"

NED BRATTS

Written from memory of Bunyan's story of old Tod in _The Life and Death of Mr. Badman_.

'T was Bedford Special Assize, one daft Midsummer's Day:
A broiling blasting June,--was never its like, men say.
Corn stood sheaf-ripe already, and trees looked yellow as that;
Ponds drained dust-dry, the cattle lay foaming around each flat.
Inside town, dogs went mad, and folk kept bibbing beer,
While the parsons prayed for rain. 'T was horrible, yes--but queer:
Queer--for the sun laughed gay, yet nobody moved a hand
To work one stroke at his trade: as given to understand
That all was come to a stop, work and such worldly ways,
And the world's old self about to end in a merry blaze,
Midsummer's day moreover was the first of Bedford Fair;
With Bedford Town's tag-rag and bobtail a-bowsing there.

But the Court House, Quality crammed: through doors ope, windows
wide,
High on the Bench you saw sit Lordships side by side.
There frowned Chief Justice Jukes, fumed learned Brother Small,
And fretted their fellow Judge: like threshers, one and all,
Of a reek with laying down the law in a furnace. Why?
Because their lungs breathed flame--the regular crowd forbye--
From gentry pouring in--quite a nosegay, to be sure!
How else could they pass the time, six mortal hours endure
Till night should extinguish day, when matters might haply mend?
Meanwhile no bad resource was--watching begin and end
Some trial for life and death, in a brisk five minutes' space,
And betting which knave would 'scape, which hang, from his sort of
face.

So, their Lordships toiled and moiled, and a deal of work was done
(I warrant) to justify the mirth of the crazy sun,
As this and t' other lout, struck dumb at the sudden show
Of red robes and white wigs, boggled nor answered "Boh!"
When asked why he, Tom Styles, should not--because Jack Nokes
Had stolen the horse--be hanged: for Judges must have their jokes,
And louts must make allowance--let 's say, for some blue fly
Which punctured a dewy scalp where the frizzles stuck awry--
Else Tom had fleered scot-free, so nearly over and done
Was the main of the job. Full-measure, the gentles enjoyed their
fun,
As a twenty-five were tried, rank puritans caught at prayer
In a cow-house and laid by the heels,--have at 'em, devil may
care!--
And ten were prescribed the whip, and ten a brand on the cheek,
And five a slit of the nose--just leaving enough to tweak.

Well, things at jolly high-tide, amusement steeped in fire,
While noon smote fierce the roof's red tiles to heart's desire,
The Court a-simmer with smoke, one ferment of oozy flesh,
One spirituous humming musk mount-mounting until its mesh
Entoiled all heads in a fluster, and Serjeant Postlethwayte
--Dashing the wig oblique as he mopped his oily pate--
Cried "Silence, or I grow grease! No loophole lets in air?
Jurymen,--Guilty, Death! Gainsay me if you dare!"
--Things at this pitch, I say,--what hubbub without the doors?
What laughs, shrieks, hoots and yells, what rudest of uproars?

Bounce through the barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast!
Thumps, kicks,--no manner of use!--spite of them rolls at last
Into the midst a ball, which, bursting, brings to view
Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too:
Both in a muck-sweat, both ... were never such eyes uplift
At the sight of yawning hell, such nostrils--snouts that sniffed
Sulphur, such mouths agape ready to swallow flame!
Horrified, hideous, frank fiend-faces! yet, all the same,
Mixed with a certain ... eh? how shall I dare style--mirth
The desperate grin of the guess that, could they break from earth,
Heaven was above, and hell might rage in impotence
Below the saved, the saved!

"Confound you! (no offence!)
Out of our way,--push, wife! Yonder their Worships be!"
Ned Bratts has reached the bar, and "Hey, my Lords," roars he,
"A Jury of life and death, Judges the prime of the land,
Constables, javelineers,--all met, if I understand,
To decide so knotty a point as whether 't was Jack or Joan
Robbed the henroost, pinched the pig, hit the King's Arms with a
stone,
Dropped the baby down the well, left the tithesman in the lurch,
Or, three whole Sundays running, not once attended church!
What a pother--do these deserve the parish-stocks or whip,
More or less brow to brand, much or little nose to snip,--
When, in our Public, plain stand we--that 's we stand here
I and my Tab, brass-bold, brick-built of beef and beer,
--Do not we, slut? Step forth and show your beauty, jade!
Wife of my bosom--that 's the word now! What a trade
We drove! None said us nay: nobody loved his life
So little as wag a tongue against us,--did they, wife?
Yet they knew us all the while, in their hearts, for what we are
--Worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged--search near and far!
Eh, Tab? The peddler, now--o'er his noggin--who warned a mate
To cut and run, nor risk his pack where its loss of weight
Was the least to dread,--aha, how we two laughed a-good
As, stealing round the midden, he came on where I stood
With billet poised and raised,--you, ready with the rope,--
Ah, but that 's past, that 's sin repented of, we hope!
Men knew us for that same, yet safe and sound stood we!
The lily-livered knaves knew too (I 've balked a d----)
Our keeping the 'Pied Bull' was just a mere pretence:
Too slow the pounds make food, drink, lodging, from out the pence!
There 's not a stoppage to travel has chanced, this ten long year,
No break into hall or grange, no lifting of nag or steer,
Not a single roguery, from the clipping of a purse
To the cutting of a throat, but paid us toll. Od's curse!
When Gypsy Smouch made bold to cheat us of our due,
--Eh, Tab? the Squire's strong-box we helped the rascal to--
I think he pulled a face, next Sessions' swinging-time!
He danced the jig that needs no floor,--and, here 's the prime,
'T was Scroggs that houghed the mare! Ay, those were busy days!

"Well, there we flourished brave, like scripture-trees called bays,
Faring high, drinking hard, in money up to head
--Not to say, boots and shoes, when ... Zounds, I nearly said--
Lord, to unlearn one's language! How shall we labor, wife?
Have you, fast hold, the Book? Grasp, grip it, for your life!
See, sirs, here 's life, salvation! Here 's--hold but out my
breath--
When did I speak so long without once swearing? 'Sdeath,
No, nor unhelped by ale since man and boy! And yet
All yesterday I had to keep my whistle wet
While reading Tab this Book: book? don't say 'book'--they 're plays,
Songs, ballads, and the like: here 's no such strawy blaze,
But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare!
Tab, help and tell! I 'm hoarse. A mug! or --no, a prayer!
Dip for one out of the Book! Who wrote it in the Jail
--He plied his pen unhelped by beer, sirs, I 'll be bail!

"I 've got my second wind. In trundles she--that 's Tab.
'Why, Gammer, what 's come now, that--bobbing like a crab
On Yule-tide bowl--your head 's a-work and both your eyes
Break loose? Afeard, you fool? As if the dead can rise!
Say--Bagman Dick was found last May with fuddling-cap
Stuffed in his month: to choke 's a natural mishap!'
'Gaffer, be--blessed,' cries she, 'and Bagman Dick as well!
I, you, and he are damned: this Public is our hell:
We live in fire: live coals don't feel!--once quenched, they learn--
Cinders do, to what dust they moulder while they burn!'

"'If you don't speak straight out,' says I--belike I swore--
'A knobstick, well you know the taste of, shall, once more,
Teach you to talk, my maid!' She ups with such a face,
Heart sunk inside me. 'Well, pad on, my prate-apace!'

"'I 've been about those laces we need for ... never mind!
If henceforth they tie hands, 't is mine they 'll have to bind.
You know who makes them best--the Tinker in our cage,
Pulled-up for gospelling, twelve years ago: no age
To try another trade,--yet, so he scorned to take
Money he did not earn, he taught himself the make
Of laces, tagged and tough--Dick Bagman found them so!
Good customers were we! Well, last week, you must know,
His girl,--the blind young chit, who hawks about his wares,--
She takes it in her head to come no more--such airs
These hussies have! Yet, since we need a stoutish lace,--
"I 'll to the jail-bird father, abuse her to his face!"
So, first I filled a jug to give me heart, and then,
Primed to the proper pitch, I posted to their den--
_Patmore_, they style their prison! I tip the turnkey, catch
My heart up, fix my face, and fearless lift the latch--
Both arms akimbo, in bounce with a good round oath
Ready for rapping out: no "Lawks" nor "By my troth!"

"'There sat my man, the father. He looked up: what one feels
When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels!
He raised his hand ... Hast seen, when drinking out the night,
And in, the day, earth grow another something quite
Under the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone.

"'"Woman!" (a fiery tear he put in every tone),
"How should my child frequent your house where lust is sport,
Violence--trade? Too true! I trust no vague report.
Her angel's hand, which stops the sight of sin, leaves clear
The other gate of sense, lets outrage through the ear.
What has she heard!--which, heard shall never be again.
Better lack food than feast, a Dives in the--wain
Or reign or train--of Charles!" (His language was not ours:
'T is my belief, God spoke: no tinker has such powers.)
"Bread, only bread they bring--my laces: if we broke
Your lump of leavened sin, the loaf's first crumb would choke!"

"'Down on my marrow-bones! Then all at once rose he:
His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see:
Up went his hands: "Through flesh, I reach, I read thy soul!
So may some stricken tree look blasted, bough and bole,
Champed by the fire-tooth, charred without, and yet, thrice-bound
With dreriment about, within may life be found,
A prisoned power to branch and blossom as before,
Could but the gardener cleave the cloister, reach the core,
Loosen the vital sap: yet where shall help be found?
Who says 'How save it?'--nor 'Why cumbers it the ground?'
Woman, that tree art thou! All sloughed about with scurf,
Thy stag-horns fright the sky, thy snake-roots sting the turf!
Drunkenness, wantonness, theft, murder gnash and gnarl
Thine outward, case thy soul with coating like the marle
Satan stamps flat upon each head beneath his hoof!
And how deliver such? The strong men keep aloof,
Lover and friend stand far, the mocking ones pass by,
Tophet gapes wide for prey: lost soul, despair and die!
What then? 'Look unto me and be ye saved!' saith God:
'I strike the rock, outstreats the life-stream at my rod![9]
Be your sins scarlet, wool shall they seem like, --although
As crimson red, yet turn white as the driven snow!'"

"'There, there, there! All I seem to somehow understand
Is--that, if I reached home, 't was through the guiding hand
Of his blind girl which led and led me through the streets
And out of town and up to door again. What greets
First thing my eye, as limbs recover from their swoon?
A book--this Book she gave at parting. "Father's boon--
The Book he wrote: it reads as if he spoke himself:
He cannot preach in bonds, so,--take it down from shelf
When you want counsel,--think you hear his very voice!

"'Wicked dear Husband, first despair and then rejoice!
Dear wicked Husband, waste no tick of moment more,
Be saved like me, bald trunk! There 's greenness yet at core,
Sap under slough! Read, read!'

"Let me take breath, my lords!
I 'd like to know, are these--hers, mine, or Bunyan's words?
I 'm 'wildered--scarce with drink,--nowise with drink alone!
You 'll say, with heat: but heat 's no stuff to split a stone
Like this black boulder--this flint heart of mine: the Book--
That dealt the crashing blow! Sirs, here 's the fist that shook
His beard till Wrestler Jem howled like a just-lugged bear!
You had brained me with a feather: at once I grew aware
Christmas was meant for me. A burden at your back,
Good Master Christmas? Nay,--yours was that Joseph's sack,
--Or whose it was,--which held the cup,--compared with mine!
Robbery loads my loins, perjury cracks my chine,
Adultery ... nay, Tab, you pitched me as I flung!
One word, I 'll up with fist ... No, sweet spouse, hold your tongue!