The owner, acting wrath, cries, “Brother,
What’s this? Are my deserts so small
You’d give me trifles?” But the other
Smiles, “Brother, you may take my all.”
He then enraged with one so meek,
So unresponsive to his mood,
Most soundly smites the martyr cheek
And rends the island quietude.
The martyr, who till now has feigned
In third degree of craftiness
That meekness is so deep ingrained
No taunt or slight can make it less,
Spits out the tooth in honest wrath,
“You hit too hard, old fool,” cried he.
They grapple on the rocky path
That zigzags downward to the sea.
In rising fury strained and stiff
They lunge across the narrow ground;
They topple headlong from the cliff
And murderously embraced are drowned.
. . . . . . . . . .
Here Peter sits: two spirits reach
To sound the knocker at his Gate.
They shower forgiveness each on each,
Beaming triumphant and elate.
But oh, their sweats, their secret fears
Lest clod-souled witnesses may rise
To set a tingling at their ears
And bar the approach to Paradise!
THE SIBYL
Her hand falls helpless: thought amazements fly
Far overhead, they leave no record mark—
Wild swans urged whistling across dazzled sky,
Or Gabriel hounds in chorus through the dark.
Yet when she prophesies, each spirit swan,
Each spectral hound from memory’s windy zones,
Flies back to inspire one limb-strewn skeleton
Of thousands in her valley of dry bones.
There as those life-restored battalions shout,
Succession flags and Time goes maimed in flight:
From each live gullet twenty swans glide out
With hell-packs loathlier yet to amaze the night.