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As if his answer could impose at all!

He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write.

Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves

Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ;

And (as I gathered from a bystander)

Their doctrine could be held by no sane man.

INSTANS TYRANNUS.

I

OF the million or two, more or less,

I rule and possess,

One man, for some cause undefined,
Was least to my mind.

II

I struck him, he grovelled of course-
For, what was his force?

I pinned him to earth with my weight

And persistence of hate;

And he lay, would not moan, would not curse,
As his lot might be worse.

III

"Were the object less mean, would he stand

"At the swing of my hand!

"For obscurity helps him, and blots

"The hole where he squats."

So, I set my five wits on the stretch

To inveigle the wretch.

All in vain! Gold and jewels I threw,
Still he couched there perdue ;

I tempted his blood and his flesh,
Hid in roses my mesh,

Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth: Still he kept to his filth.

IV

Had he kith now or kin, were access

To his heart, did I press :

Just a son or a mother to seize !

No such booty as these.

Were it simply a friend to pursue

'Mid my million or two,

Who could pay me, in person or pelf,

What he owes me himself!

No: I could not but smile through my chafe:

For the fellow lay safe

As his mates do, the midge and the nit,
-Through minuteness, to wit.

V

Then a humour more great took its place
At the thought of his face :

The droop, the low cares of the mouth,

The trouble uncouth

'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain

To put out of its pain.

And, "no!" I admonished myself,

"Is one mocked by an elf,

"Is one baffled by toad or by rat?

"The gravamen 's in that!

"How the lion, who crouches to suit

"His back to my foot,

"Would admire that I stand in debate!

"But the small turns the great

"If it vexes you,—that is the thing!

"Toad or rat vex the king?

"Though I waste half my realm to unearth

"Toad or rat, 't is well worth!"

VI

So, I soberly laid my last plan

To extinguish the man.

Round his creep-hole, with never a break

Ran my fires for his sake;

Over-head, did my thunder combine

With my under-ground mine :

Till I looked from my labour content
To enjoy the event.

VII

When sudden . . . how think ye, the end?

Did I say "without friend?"

Say rather, from marge to blue marge

The whole sky grew his targe

With the sun's self for visible boss,

While an Arm ran across

Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast

Where the wretch was safe prest!

Do you see! Just my vengeance complete,

The man sprang to his feet,

Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed! -So, I was afraid!

AN EPISTLE.

CONTAINING THE

STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH,
THE ARAB PHYSICIAN.

KARSHISH, the picker-up of learning's crumbs,
The not-incurious in God's handiwork
(This man's-flesh he hath admirably made,
Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,
To coop up and keep down on earth a space

That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul)
-To Abib, all-sagacious in our art,

Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast,

Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks

Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain,

Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip
Back and rejoin its source before the term,-

And aptest in contrivance (under God)

To baffle it by deftly stopping such :

The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home

Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace)

Three samples of true snake-stone-rarer still,
One of the other sort, the melon-shaped,

(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs)
And writeth now the twenty-second time.

My journeyings were brought to Jericho :
Thus I resume. Who studious in our art
Shall count a little labour unrepaid?

I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone
On many a flinty furlong of this land.
Also, the country-side is all on fire
With rumours of a marching hitherward :
Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son.
A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear:
Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls :
I cried and threw my staff and he was gone.
Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me,
And once a town declared me for a spy;
But at the end, I reach Jerusalem,

Since this poor covert where I pass the night,
This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence
A man with plague-sores at the third degree
Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here!
'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe,

To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip
And share with thee whatever Jewry yields.
A viscid choler is observable

In tertians, I was nearly bold to say;

And falling-sickness hath a happier cure
Than our school wots of: there's a spider here
Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs,
Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-grey back ;

Take five and drop them . . . but who knows his

mind,

...

The Syrian run-a-gate I trust this to?
His service payeth me a sublimate
Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye.
Best wait I reach Jerusalem at morn,
There set in order my experiences,

Gather what most deserves, and give thee all-
Or I might add, Judæa's gum-tragacanth
Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained,
Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry,
In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease
Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy :
Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar-
But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.

Yet stay! my Syrian blinketh gratefully,
Protesteth his devotion is my price-

Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal?
I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush,
What set me off a-writing first of all.

An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang!

For, be it this town's barrenness—or else

The Man had something in the look of him—

His case has struck me far more than 't is worth.

So, pardon if (lest presently I lose,

In the great press of novelty at hand,

The care and pains this somehow stole from me)

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