To ashes, that was very fire before,
In sedulous recurrence to his trade
Whereby he earneth him the daily bread
And studiously the humbler for that pride,
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.

'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last

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

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.

How can he give his neighbour 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-
"How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness
Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march
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?

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

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 travels I have feigned
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!

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

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

That lived there in the pyramid alone)

Was wrought by the mad people

On vain recourse, as I conjecture it,

that's their wont

To his tried virtue, for miraculous help

How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way!

The other imputations must be lies:

But take one-though I loathe to give it thee,

In mere respect to any good man's fame!

(And after all our patient Lazarus

Is stark mad

Perhaps not

should we count on what he says?

though in writing to a leech

'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!

-'Sayeth that such an One was born and lived, Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know, what I said nor choose repeat,

And yet was . . .

And must have so avouched himself, in fact,

In hearing of this very Lazarus

Who saith but why all this of what he saith?

Why write of trivial matters, things of price.
Calling at every moment for remark ?
I noticed on the margin of a pool
Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort,
Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange !

Thy pardon for this long and tedious case,

Which, now that I review it, needs must seem
Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth.

Nor I myself discern in what is writ
Good cause for the peculiar interest

And awe indeed this man has touched me with.
Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness
Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus
I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills
Like an old lion's cheek-teeth. Out there came
A moon made like a face with certain spots
Multiform, manifold, and menacing:
Then a wind rose behind me. So we met
In this old sleepy town at unaware,
The man and I. I send thee what is writ.
Regard it as a chance, a matter risked
To this ambiguous Syrian - he may lose,
Or steal, or give it thee with equal good.
Jerusalem's repose shall make amends
For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine,
Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!

The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think? So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too So, through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here! Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself. Thou hast no power nor may'st conceive of mine, But love I gave thee, with Myself to love,

And thou must love me who have died for thee!" The madman saith He said so it is strange.

MESMERISM.

1.

ALL I believed is true!

I am able yet

All I want to get

By a method as strange as new: Dare I trust the same to you?

2.

If at night, when doors are shut, And the wood-worm picks,

And the death-watch ticks,

And the bar has a flag of smut, And a cat's in the water-butt

3.

And the socket floats and flares,

And the house-beams groan,

And a foot unknown