'T is my belief, God spoke: no tinker has such powers.)

"Bread, only bread they bring—my laces: if we broke

Your lump of leavened sin, the loaf's first crumb would choke!"

"'Down on my marrow-bones! Then all at once rose he:

His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see:

Up went his hands: "Through flesh, I reach, I read thy soul!

So may some stricken tree look blasted, bough and bole,

Champed by the fire-tooth, charred without, and yet, thrice-bound

With dreriment about, within may life be found,

A prisoned power to branch and blossom as before,