Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart
That henceforth she will read or these or none.
And first-the man's own firm conviction rests
That he was dead (in fact they buried him)
-That he was dead and then restored to life
By a Nazarene physician of his tribe:

95

100

'Sayeth, the same bade Rise," and he did rise.

66

Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry.

Not so this figment!-not, that such a fume,

Instead of giving way to time and health,

Should eat itself into the life of life,

105

As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones, and all!

For see, how he takes up the after-life.

The man-it is one Lazarus a Jew,

Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age,
The body's habit wholly laudable,

As much, indeed, beyond the common health
As he were made and put aside to show.
Think, could we penetrate by any drug
And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh,
And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep!
Whence has the man the balm that brightens all?
This grown man eyes the world now like a child.
Some elders of his tribe, I should premise,
Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep,
To bear my inquisition. While they spoke,
Now sharply, now with sorrow,-told the case,-
He listened not except I spoke to him,
But folded his two hands and let them talk,
Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool.
And that's a sample how his years must go.

115

120

125

Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life,

Should find a treasure,- -can he use the same

With straitened habits and with tastes starved small,

And take at once to his impoverished brain
The sudden element that changes things,

130

103. Fume. A fancy.

That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand,
And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust?
Is he not such an one as moves to mirth-

Warily parsimonious, when no need,
Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times?
All prudent counsel as to what befits
The golden mean, is lost on such an one:
The man's fantastic will is the man's law.

135

So here we call the treasure knowledge, say,

Increased beyond the fleshly faculty

140

Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,

Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven:

The man is witless of the size, the sum,

The value in proportion of all things,

Or whether it be little or be much.

145

Discourse to him of prodigious armaments
Assembled to besiege his city now,

And of the passing of a mule with gourds'Tis one! Then take it on the other side,

Speak of some trifling fact, he will gaze rapt
With stupor at its very littleness,

150

(Far as I see) as if in that indeed

He caught prodigious import, whole results;

And so will turn to us the bystanders

In ever the same stupor (note the point)

155

That we too see not with his opened eyes.

Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play,

Preposterously, at cross purposes.

Should his child sicken unto death,—why, look

For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness,

160

Or pretermission of the daily craft!

While a word, gesture, glance from that same child
At play or in the school or laid asleep,
Will startle him to an agony of fear,

Exasperation, just as like. Demand

The reason why-"'tis but a word," object

165

167. Our lord. Some sage under whom Abib and Karshish had studied,

Who lived there in the pyramid alone,

Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young,

We both would unadvisedly recite

170

Some charm's beginning, from that book of his,
Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst

All into stars, as suns grown old are wont.
Thou and the child have each a veil alike

174

Thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both
Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match
Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know!
He holds on firmly to some thread of life—
(It is the life to lead perforcedly)

Which runs across some vast distracting orb
Of glory on either side that meager thread,
Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet—
The spiritual life around the earthly life:
The law of that is known to him as this,

180

His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. 185
So is the man perplext with impulses

Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on,
Proclaiming what is right and wrong across,
And not along, this black thread thro' the blaze-
"It should be balked by "here it cannot be."
And oft the man's soul springs into his face
As if he saw again and heard again

His sage that bade him " Rise" and he did rise.
Something, a word, a tick o' the blood within
Admonishes: then back he sinks at once

To ashes, who was very fire before,

In sedulous recurrence to his trade

Whereby he earneth him the daily bread;

And studiously the humbler for that pride,

190

195

177. Greek fire. This is an anachronism, as Greek fire was first used in warfare by the Byzantine Greeks against the Saracens at the siege of Constantinople in 673 A. D. Liquid fire, however, was used by the ancients. Gibbon says (Ch. 57): "It would seem that the principal ingredient was the naphtha or liquid bitumen; a light, tenacious inflammable oil, which springs from the earth and catches fire as soon as it comes in contact with the air."

Professedly the faultier that he knows
God's secret, while he holds the thread of life.
Indeed the especial marking of the man

Is prone submission to the heavenly will-
Seeing it, what it is, and why it is.

200

'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last

For that same death which must restore his being
To equilibrium, body loosening soul

205

Divorced even now by premature full growth:
He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live

So long as God please, and just how God please.
He even seeketh not to please God more
(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please.
Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach
The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be,
Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do:

210

215

How can he give his neighbor the real ground,
His own conviction? Ardent as he is-
Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old
"Be it as God please" reassureth him.
I probed the sore as thy disciple should:

66

How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march

220

To stamp out like a little spark thy town,
Thy tribe, thy crazy tale, and thee at once?"

He merely looked with his large eyes on me.
The man is apathetic, you deduce?

225

Contrariwise, he loves both old and young,

Able and weak, affects the very brutes

And birds-how say I? flowers of the field

As a wise workman recognizes tools

230

In a master's workshop, loving what they make.

Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb:

Only impatient, let him do his best,

At ignorance and carelessness and sin

An indignation which is promptly curbed:
As when in certain travel I have feigned

235

To be an ignoramus in our art

According to some preconceived design,
And happed to hear the land's practitioners
Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance,

Prattle fantastically on disease,

Its cause and cure-and I must hold my peace!

240

Thou wilt object-Why have I not ere this
Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene
Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source,
Conferring with the frankness that befits?
Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech
Perished in a tumult many years ago,
Accused, our learning's fate,—of wizardry,
Rebellion, to the setting up a rule

245

250

And creed prodigious as described to me.

His death, which happened when the earthquake fell (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss

To occult learning in our lord the sage

Who lived there in the pyramid alone)

255

Was wrought by the mad people-that's their wont!
On vain recourse, as I conjecture it,

To his tried virtue, for miraculous help

How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way! The other imputations must be lies:

260

But take one, tho' I loathe to give it thee,

In mere respect for any good man's fame.

(And after all, our patient Lazarus

Is stark mad; should we count on what he says?

Perhaps not: tho' in writing to a leech

265

'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.)
This man so cured regards the curer, then,
As-God forgive me! who but God himself,
Creator and sustainer of the world, .
That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile.

270

'Sayeth that such an one was born and lived,

Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house,