But hogs go mad at once. All this I knew,—
But then this lunatic had rights. You grant
Swine-devils had him in their clutch and drew
His baffled spirit. How significant,
As they were legion and so named! The point
Is, life bewildered, torn in greed and wrath;—
Desire puts a spirit out of joint.
Swine-devils are for swine who have no path.
But man with many lusts, what is his way,
Save in confusion, through accustomed rooms?
He prays for night to come, and for the day
Amid the miry places and the tombs.
But hogs run to the sea. And there’s an end.
Would I might cast the swinish demons out
From man forever. Yet the word attend.
The lesson of the thing what soul can doubt?
What is the loss of hogs, if man be saved?
What loss of lands and houses, man being free?
Clothed in his reason sits the man who raved,
Clean and at peace, your honor. Come and see.
Your honor shakes a frowning head. Not loth,
Speaking more plainly, deeper truth to draw;
Do your judicial duty, yet I clothe
Free souls with courage to transgress the law.
By casting demons out from self, or those
Like this poor lunatic whom your synagogues
Would leave to battle singly with his woes—
What is a man’s soul to a drove of hogs?
Which being lost, men play the hypocrite
And make the owner chief in the affair.
You banish me for witchcraft. I submit.
Work of this kind awaits me everywhere.
And into swine where better they belong,
Casting the swinish devils out of men,
The devils have their place at last, and then
The man is healed who had them—where’s the wrong,
Save to the owner? Well, your synagogues
Make the split hoof and chewing of the cud
The test of lawful flesh. Not so are hogs.
This rule has been the statute since the flood.