There in the lonely splendour Dymer ate,

As thieves eat, ever watching, half in fear.

He blamed his evil fortune. “I come late.

Whose board was this? What company sat here?

What women with wise mouths, what comrades dear

Who would have made me welcome as the one

Free-born of all my race and cried, ‘Well done!’”

17

Remember, yet again, he had grown up

On rations and on scientific food,