III To whom used my boy George quaff else, (Chorus) King Charles, and who'll do him rigis now ? 15 20 III BOOT AND SADDLE I BOOT, saddle, to horse, and away! (Chorus) "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" II Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say; (Chorus) "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" III Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay, Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array: (Chorus) Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" 5 IO 16. Noll. Oliver Cromwell, England's patriot general and statesman, after Charles I.'s execution Lord Protector of England. III. 10. Flouts (ME. Auyten, jeer, play the flute). Scoff, mock. II. Fay. An archaic form of faith. IV Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay, (Chorus) "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" Song From "Pippa Passes "* THE year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in His heaven All's right with the world! An Epistle + 15 5 CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN KARSHISH, the picker-up of learning's crumbs, (This man's-flesh he hath admirably made, Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, *Pippa's hymn strikes the keynote of the whole poem, asserting that "the service of all God's children is equally valuable in his sight." + An Epistle was begun at Rome in the winter of 1853-54, and finished later at Florence. It was published in Men and Women, 1855. The poem is based on the account given in John ii. 1-46 of Christ's healing of Lazarus. Hardly less remarkable than the depictment of the effect of Lazarus' experience on his subsequent life is the psychological study of the learned leech, with his incredulous, science-trained intellect and his heart hungering for God's truth. Despite his protestations, we soon feel that it is to tell this strange tale of Lazarus-not to discourse of spiders and borage-that he writes to his master, and the truth breaks out at the last in that yearning eloquent cry for the God of Love. To coop up and keep down on earth a space Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks Befall the flesh thro' too much stress and strain, 5 ΙΟ And aptest in contrivance (under God) To baffle it by deftly stopping such: The vagrant Scholar to his sage at home 15 Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace) My journeyings were brought to Jericho: I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone 20 25 With rumors of a marching hitherward: Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son. A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear: 30 Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me, But at the end, I reach Jerusalem, 17. Snakestone. Placed upon a snake-bite, it was supposed to absorb or charm away the poison. 21. Were brought. That is, in his last letter. 22-33. See the true spirit of the man of science,-his zeal in pursuit of knowledge, his contempt of hindering dangers. 28. This gives us the date of the Epistle. Titus Flavius Vespasianus was sent by Nero in 66 to conduct the war against the Jews; when proclaimed emperor in 70 he left his son to carry on the war. Since this poor covert where I pass the night, 35 40 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 45 Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray 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 50 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 55 Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained, Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry, In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar 60 But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end. 36. Bethany. A village two miles from Jerusalem. The leech indicates the distance vividly and characteristically. 42. Choler (Gr. chole, bile). Here used in its original sense of bile. 45. Spider. Probably one of the saltigrade species, which springs on its prey like a cat or tiger. Spiders were used internally and externally for medicine down to a comparatively recent period. Sir Walter Raleigh, for instance, approved the healing virtues of a certain spider preparation. 57. Porphyry. A hard stone used by the ancients as a mortar. 60. Hadst. Wouldst have. Zoar. One of "the cities of the plain," near the Dead Sea; cf. Gen. xix. 22. Yet stay! my Syrian blinketh gratefully, Protesteth his devotion is my price Suppose I write what harms not, tho' he steal? 65 What set me off a-writing first of all. The Man had something in the look of him— His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth. 70 The care and pains this somehow stole from me) 75 'Tis but a case of mania: subinduced By epilepsy, at the turning point 80 Of trance prolonged unduly some three days When, by the exhibition of some drug Or spell, exorcization, stroke of art Unknown to me and which 'twere well to know, 85 Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,— But, flinging (so to speak) life's gates too wide, The first conceit that entered might inscribe (First come, first served) that nothing subsequent The just-returned and new-established soul 63. et seq. Karshish protests that it is because he fears to trust his Syrian messenger with important matters that he tells the idle tale of Lazarus-thus deprecating Abib's scorn. 82. Exhibition. Here has its medical sense-to administer a remedy. |