Each in his eyes was dark and cavernous,
Pallid in face, and so emaciate
That from the bones the skin did shape itself.
I do not think that so to merest rind
Could Erisichthon have been withered up
By famine, when most fear he had of it.
Thinking within myself I said: “Behold,
This is the folk who lost Jerusalem,
When Mary made a prey of her own son.”
Their sockets were like rings without the gems;
Whoever in the face of men reads ‘omo’
Might well in these have recognised the ‘m.’
Who would believe the odour of an apple,
Begetting longing, could consume them so,
And that of water, without knowing how?
I still was wondering what so famished them,
For the occasion not yet manifest
Of their emaciation and sad squalor;
And lo! from out the hollow of his head
His eyes a shade turned on me, and looked keenly;
Then cried aloud: “What grace to me is this?”
Never should I have known him by his look;
But in his voice was evident to me
That which his aspect had suppressed within it.
This spark within me wholly re-enkindled
My recognition of his altered face,
And I recalled the features of Forese.
“Ah, do not look at this dry leprosy,”
Entreated he, “which doth my skin discolour,
Nor at default of flesh that I may have;