XII.

There were no wings upon the stranger's shoulders,
And yet he seemed so capable of rising

That, had he soared like thistledown, beholders
Had thought the circumstance noways surprising;
Enough that he remained, and, when the scolders
Hailed him as umpire in their vocal prize-ring,
The painter of his boat he lightly threw
Around a lotos-stem, and brought her to.

XIII.

The strange youth had a look as if he might Have trod far planets where the atmosphere

(Of nobler temper) steeps the face with light, Just as our skins are tanned and freckled here; His hair was that of a cosmopolite

In the wide universe from sphere to sphere;
Perhaps he was (his face had such grave beauty)
An officer of Saturn's guards off duty.

XIV.

Both saints began to unfold their tales at once, Both wished their tales, like simial ones, prehensile,

That they might seize his ear; fool! knave! and dunce !

Flew zigzag back and forth, like strokes of pencil

In a child's fingers; voluble as duns,

They jabbered like the stones on that immense hill
In the Arabian Nights; until the stranger
Began to think his ear-drums in some danger.

XV.

In general those who nothing have to say
Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it;
They turn and vary it in every way,
Hashing it, stewing it, mincing it, ragouting it;
Sometimes they keep it purposely at bay,
Then let it slip to be again pursuing it;

They drone it, groan it, whisper it and shout it,
Refute it, flout it, swear to't, prove it, doubt it.

XVI

Our saints had practised for some thirty years; Their talk, beginning with a single stem,

Spread like a banyan, sending down live piers,
Colonies of digression, and, in them,

Germs of yet new migrations; once by the ears,
They could convey damnation in a hem,
And blow the pinch of premise-priming off
Long syllogistic batteries, with a cough.

XVII.

Each had a theory that the human ear
A providential tunnel was, which led
To a huge vacuum (and surely here

They showed some knowledge of the general head),
For cant to be decanted througn, a mere

Auricular canal or raceway to be fed

All day and night, in sunshine and in shower,
From their vast heads of milk-and-water power.

XVIII.

The present being a peculiar case,

Each with unwonted zeal the other scouted,
Put his spurred hobby through its very pace,

Pished, pshawed, poohed, horribled, bahed, jeered, sneered, flouted,

Sniffed, nonsensed, infideled, fudged, with his face

Looked scorn too nicely shaded to be shouted,

And, with each inch of person and of vesture,
Contrived to hint some most disdainful gesture.

XIX.

At length, when their breath's end was come about,
And both could, now and then, just gasp "impostor!"
Holding their heads thrust menacingly out,
As staggering cocks keep up their fighting posture,
The stranger smiled and said, "Beyond a doubt
'Tis fortunate, my friends, that you have lost your
United parts of speech, or it had been
Impossible for me to get between.

XX.

"Produce! says Nature,-what have you produced? A new straitwaistcoat for the human mind;

Are you not limbed, nerved, jointed, arteried, juiced As other men? yet, faithless to your kind,

Rather like noxious insects you are used To puncture life's fair fruit, beneath the rind Laying your creed-eggs whence in time there spring Consumers new to eat and buzz and sting.

XXI.

"Work! you have no conception how 'twill sweeten Your views of Life and Nature, God and Man;

Had you been fr:ced to earn what you have eaten,
Your heaven had shown a lesss dyspeptic plan;
At present your whole function is to eat ten
And talk ten times as rapidly as you can;
Were your shape true to cosmogonic laws,
You would be nothing but a pair of jaws.

XXII.

"Of all the useless beings in creation The earth could spare most easily you bakers

Of little clay gods, formed in shape and fashion
Precisely in the image of their makers;

Why, it would almost move a saint to passion,
To see these blind and deaf, the hourly breakers
Of God's own image in their brother men,
Set themselves up to tell the how, where, when,

XXIII.

"Of God's existence, one's digestion's worse-
So makes a god of vengeance and of blood;
Another-but no matter, they reverse
Creation's plan, out of their own vile mud
Pat up a god, and burn, drown, hang, or curse
Whoever worships not; each keeps his stud
Of texts which wait with saddle on and bridle
To hunt down atheists to their ugly idol.

XXIV.

"This, I perceive, has been your occupation;
You should have been more usefully employed;
All men are bound to earn their daily ration,
Where States make not that primal contract void
By cramps and limits; simple devastation
Is the worm's task, and what he has destroyed
His monument; creating is man's work

And that, too, something more than mist and murk."

XXV.

So having said, the youth was seen no more,
And straightway our sage Brahmin, the philosopher,
Cried, "That was aimed at thee, thou endless bore,
Idle and useless as the growth of moss over

A rotting tree-trunk!" "I would square that score Full soon," replied the Dervise, "could I cross over And catch thee by the beard! Thy nails I'd trim And make thee work, as was advised by him."

XXVI.

"Work? Am I not at work from morn till night Sounding the deeps of oracles umbilical

Which for man's guidance never come to light, With all their various aptitudes, until I call ?" "And I, do I not twirl from left to right

For conscience sake? Is that no work? Thou silly gull, He had thee in his eye; 'twas Gabriel

Sent to reward my faith, I know him well."

XXVII.

""Twas Vishnu, thou vile whirligig!" and so The good old quarrel was begun anew;

One would have sworn the sky was black as sloe,

Had but the other dared to call it blue;

Nor were the followers who fed them slow
To treat each other with their curses, too,
Each hating 'tother (moves it tears or laughter?
Because he thought him sure of hell hereafter.

XXVIII.

At last some genius built a bridge of boats
Over the stream, and Ahmed's zealots filed
Across, upon a mission to (cut throats
And) spread religion pure and undefiled;
They sowed the propagandist's wildest oats,
Cutting off all, down to the smallest child,

And came back, giving thanks for such fat mercies,
To find their harvest gone past prayers or curses.

XXIX.

All gone except their saint's religious hops,
Which he kept up with more than common flourish;
But these, however satisfying crops

For the inner man, were not enough to nourish
The body politic, which quickly drops

Reserve in such sad junctures, and turns currish;
So Ahmed soon got cursed for all the famine
Where'er the popular voice could edge a damn in.

XXX.

At first he pledged a miracle quite boldly,
And, for a day or two, they growled and waited;
But, finding that this kind of manna coldly
Sat on their stomachs, they ere long berated
The saint for still persisting in that old lie,

Till soon the whole machine of saintship grated,

Ran slow, creaked, stopped, and, wishing him in Tophet, They gathered strength enough to stone the prophet.

XXXI.

Some stronger ones contrived (by eating leather,
Their weaker friends, and one thing or another),
The winter months of scarcity to weather;
Among these was the late saint's younger brother,
Who, in the spring, collecting them together,
Persuaded them that Ahmed's holy pother
Had wrought in their behalf, and that the place
Of Saint should be continued to his race.