1. ۱Karshish, the picker up of learning's crumbs,
2. ۲The not incurious in God's handiwork
3. ۳(This man's flesh he hath admirably made,
4. ۴Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,
5. ۵To coop up and keep down on earth a space
6. ۶That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul)
7. ۷--To Abib, all sagacious in our art,
8. ۸Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast,
9. ۹Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks
10. ۱۰Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain,
11. ۱۱Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip
12. ۱۲Back and rejoin its source before the term,--
13. ۱۳And aptest in contrivance (under God)
14. ۱۴To baffle it by deftly stopping such--
15. ۱۵The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home
16. ۱۶Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace)
17. ۱۷Three samples of true snake-stone--rarer still,
18. ۱۸One of the other sort, the melon-shaped,
19. ۱۹(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs)
20. ۲۰And writeth now the twenty-second time.
21. ۲۱
22. ۲۲My journeyings were brought to Jericho:
23. ۲۳Thus I resume. Who studious in our art
24. ۲۴Shall count a little labour unrepaid?
25. ۲۵I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone
26. ۲۶On many a flinty furlong of this land.
27. ۲۷Also, the country-side is all on fire
28. ۲۸With rumours of a marching hitherward:
29. ۲۹Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son.
30. ۳۰A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear:
31. ۳۱... of my blood inflamed his yellow balls:
32. ۳۲I cried and threw my staff and he was gone.
33. ۳۳Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me,
34. ۳۴And once a town declared me for a spy;
35. ۳۵But at the end, I reach Jerusalem,
36. ۳۶Since this poor covert where I pass the night,
37. ۳۷This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence
38. ۳۸A man with plague-sores at the third degree
39. ۳۹Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here!
40. ۴۰'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe,
41. ۴۱To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip
42. ۴۲And share with thee whatever Jewry yields.
43. ۴۳A viscid choler is observable
44. ۴۴In tertians, I was nearly bold to say;
45. ۴۵And falling-sickness hath a happier cure
46. ۴۶Than our school wots of: there's a spider here
47. ۴۷Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs,
48. ۴۸Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back;
49. ۴۹Take five and drop them ... but who knows his mind,
50. ۵۰The Syrian run-a-gate I trust this to?
51. ۵۱His service payeth me a sublimate
52. ۵۲Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye.
53. ۵۳Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn,
54. ۵۴There set in order my experiences,
55. ۵۵Gather what most deserves, and give thee all--
56. ۵۶Or I might add, Judæa's gum-tragacanth
57. ۵۷Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained,
58. ۵۸Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry.
59. ۵۹In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease
60. ۶۰Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy:
61. ۶۱Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar--
62. ۶۲But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.
63. ۶۳
64. ۶۴Yet stay! my Syrian blinketh gratefully,
65. ۶۵Protested his devotion is my price--
66. ۶۶Suppose I write, what harms not, tho' he steal?
67. ۶۷I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush,
68. ۶۸What set me off a-writing first of all.
69. ۶۹An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang!
70. ۷۰For, be it this town's barrenness--or else
71. ۷۱The man had something in the look of him--
72. ۷۲His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth.
73. ۷۳So, pardon if--(lest presently I lose,
74. ۷۴In the great press of novelty at hand,
75. ۷۵The care and pains this somehow stole from me)
76. ۷۶I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind.
77. ۷۷Almost in sight--for, wilt thou have the truth?
78. ۷۸The very man is gone from me but now,
79. ۷۹Whose ailment is the subject of discourse.
80. ۸۰Thus then, and let thy better wit help all!
81. ۸۱
82. ۸۲'Tis but a case of mania: subinduced
83. ۸۳By epilepsy, at the turning-point
84. ۸۴Of trance prolonged unduly some three days
85. ۸۵When, by the exhibition of some drug
86. ۸۶Or spell, exorcisation, stroke of art
87. ۸۷Unknown to me and which 'twere well to know,
88. ۸۸The evil thing, out-breaking all at once,
89. ۸۹Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,--
90. ۹۰But, flinging (so to speak) life's gates too wide,
91. ۹۱Making a clear house of it too suddenly,
92. ۹۲The first conceit that entered might inscribe
93. ۹۳Whatever it was minded on the wall
94. ۹۴So plainly at that vantage, as it were,
95. ۹۵(First come, first served) that nothing subsequent
96. ۹۶Attaineth to erase those fancy-scrawls
97. ۹۷The just-returned and new-established soul
98. ۹۸Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart
99. ۹۹That henceforth she will read or these or none.
100. ۱۰۰And first--the man's own firm conviction rests
101. ۱۰۱That he was dead (in fact they buried him)
102. ۱۰۲--That he was dead and then restored to life
103. ۱۰۳By a Nazarene physician of his tribe:
104. ۱۰۴--'Sayeth, the same bade "Rise," and he did rise,
105. ۱۰۵"Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry.
106. ۱۰۶Not so this figment!--not, that such a fume,
107. ۱۰۷Instead of giving way to time and health,
108. ۱۰۸Should eat itself into the life of life.
109. ۱۰۹As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones, and all!
110. ۱۱۰For see, how he takes up the after-life,
111. ۱۱۱The man--it is one Lazarus, a Jew,
112. ۱۱۲Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age,
113. ۱۱۳The body's habit wholly laudable,
114. ۱۱۴As much, indeed, beyond the common health.
115. ۱۱۵As he were made and put aside to show.
116. ۱۱۶Think, could we penetrate by any drug
117. ۱۱۷And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh,
118. ۱۱۸And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep!
119. ۱۱۹Whence has the man the balm that brightens all?
120. ۱۲۰This grown man eyes the world now like a child.
121. ۱۲۱Some elders of his tribe, I should premise,
122. ۱۲۲Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep,
123. ۱۲۳To bear my inquisition. While they spoke,
124. ۱۲۴Now sharply, now with sorrow,--told the case,--
125. ۱۲۵He listened not except I spoke to him,
126. ۱۲۶But folded his two hands and let them talk,
127. ۱۲۷Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool.
128. ۱۲۸And that's a sample how his years must go.
129. ۱۲۹
130. ۱۳۰Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life,
131. ۱۳۱Should find a treasure,--can he use the same
132. ۱۳۲With straitened habits and with tastes starved small,
133. ۱۳۳And take at once to his impoverished brain
134. ۱۳۴The sudden element that changes things,
135. ۱۳۵That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand,
136. ۱۳۶And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust?
137. ۱۳۷Is he not such an one as moves to mirth--
138. ۱۳۸Warily parsimonious, when no need,
139. ۱۳۹Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times?
140. ۱۴۰All prudent counsel as to what befits
141. ۱۴۱The golden mean, is lost on such an one:
142. ۱۴۲The man's fantastic will is the man's law.
143. ۱۴۳So here--we call the treasure knowledge, say,
144. ۱۴۴Increased beyond the fleshly faculty--
145. ۱۴۵Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,
146. ۱۴۶Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven:
147. ۱۴۷The man is witless of the size, the sum,
148. ۱۴۸The value in proportion of all things,
149. ۱۴۹Or whether it be little or be much.
150. ۱۵۰Discourse to him of prodigious armaments
151. ۱۵۱Assembled to besiege his city now,
152. ۱۵۲And of the passing of a mule with gourds--
153. ۱۵۳'Tis one! Then take it on the other side,
154. ۱۵۴Speak of some trifling fact,--he will gaze rapt
155. ۱۵۵With stupor at its very littleness,
156. ۱۵۶(Far as I see) as if in that indeed
157. ۱۵۷He caught prodigious import, whole results.
158. ۱۵۸And so will turn to us the bystanders
159. ۱۵۹In ever the same stupor (note this point)
160. ۱۶۰That we too see not with his opened eyes.
161. ۱۶۱Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play,
162. ۱۶۲Preposterously, at cross purposes.
163. ۱۶۳Should his child sicken unto death,--why, look
164. ۱۶۴For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness,
165. ۱۶۵Or pretermission of the daily craft!
166. ۱۶۶While a word, gesture, glance from that same child
167. ۱۶۷At play or in the school or laid asleep,
168. ۱۶۸Will startle him to an agony of fear,
169. ۱۶۹Exasperation, just as like. Demand
170. ۱۷۰The reason why--"'tis but a word," object--
171. ۱۷۱"A gesture"--he regards thee as our lord
172. ۱۷۲Who lived there in the pyramid alone,
173. ۱۷۳Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young
174. ۱۷۴We both would unadvisedly recite
175. ۱۷۵Some charm's beginning, from that book of his,
176. ۱۷۶Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst
177. ۱۷۷All into stars, as suns grown old are wont.
178. ۱۷۸Thou and the child have each a veil alike
179. ۱۷۹Thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both
180. ۱۸۰Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match
181. ۱۸۱Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know!
182. ۱۸۲He holds on firmly to some thread of life
183. ۱۸۳(It is the life to lead perforcedly)
184. ۱۸۴Which runs across some vast distracting orb
185. ۱۸۵Of glory on either side that meagre thread,
186. ۱۸۶Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet--
187. ۱۸۷The spiritual life around the earthly life:
188. ۱۸۸The law of that is known to him as this,
189. ۱۸۹His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here.
190. ۱۹۰So is the man perplext with impulses
191. ۱۹۱Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on,
192. ۱۹۲Proclaiming what is right and wrong across,
193. ۱۹۳And not along, this black thread thro' the blaze--
194. ۱۹۴"It should be" balked by "here it cannot be."
195. ۱۹۵And oft the man's soul springs into his face
196. ۱۹۶As if he saw again and heard again
197. ۱۹۷His sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise.
198. ۱۹۸Something, a word, a tick o' the blood within
199. ۱۹۹Admonishes: then back he sinks at once
200. ۲۰۰To ashes, who was very fire before,
201. ۲۰۱In sedulous recurrence to his trade
202. ۲۰۲Whereby he earneth him the daily bread;
203. ۲۰۳And studiously the humbler for that pride,
204. ۲۰۴Professedly the faultier that he knows
205. ۲۰۵God's secret, while he holds the thread of life.
206. ۲۰۶Indeed the especial marking of the man
207. ۲۰۷Is prone submission to the heavenly will--
208. ۲۰۸Seeing it, what it is, and why it is.
209. ۲۰۹'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last
210. ۲۱۰For that same death, which must restore his being
211. ۲۱۱To equilibrium, body loosening soul
212. ۲۱۲Divorced even now by premature full growth:
213. ۲۱۳He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live
214. ۲۱۴So long as God please, and just how God please.
215. ۲۱۵He even seeketh not to please God more
216. ۲۱۶(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please.
217. ۲۱۷Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach
218. ۲۱۸The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be,
219. ۲۱۹Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do:
220. ۲۲۰How can he give his neighbour the real ground,
221. ۲۲۱His own conviction? Ardent as he is--
222. ۲۲۲Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old
223. ۲۲۳"Be it as God please" reassureth him.
224. ۲۲۴I probed the sore as thy disciple should:
225. ۲۲۵"How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness
226. ۲۲۶Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march
227. ۲۲۷To stamp out like a little spark thy town,
228. ۲۲۸Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?"
229. ۲۲۹He merely looked with his large eyes on me,
230. ۲۳۰The man is apathetic, you deduce?
231. ۲۳۱Contrariwise, he loves both old and young,
232. ۲۳۲Able and weak, affects the very brutes
233. ۲۳۳And birds--how say I? flowers of the field--
234. ۲۳۴As a wise workman recognizes tools
235. ۲۳۵In a master's workshop, loving what they make.
236. ۲۳۶Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb:
237. ۲۳۷Only impatient, let him do his best,
238. ۲۳۸At ignorance and carelessness and sin--
239. ۲۳۹An indignation which is promptly curbed:
240. ۲۴۰As when in certain travel I have feigned
241. ۲۴۱To be an ignoramus in our art
242. ۲۴۲According to some preconceived design,
243. ۲۴۳And happed to hear the land's practitioners
244. ۲۴۴Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance,
245. ۲۴۵Prattle fantastically on disease,
246. ۲۴۶Its cause and cure--and I must hold my peace!
247. ۲۴۷
248. ۲۴۸Thou wilt object--Why have I not ere this
249. ۲۴۹Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene
250. ۲۵۰Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source,
251. ۲۵۱Conferring with the frankness that befits?
252. ۲۵۲Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech
253. ۲۵۳Perished in a tumult many years ago,
254. ۲۵۴Accused--our learning's fate--of wizardry,
255. ۲۵۵Rebellion, to the setting up a rule
256. ۲۵۶And creed prodigious as described to me.
257. ۲۵۷His death, which happened when the earthquake fell
258. ۲۵۸(Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss
259. ۲۵۹To occult learning in our lord the sage
260. ۲۶۰Who lived there in the pyramid alone),
261. ۲۶۱Was wrought by the mad people--that's their wont!
262. ۲۶۲On vain recourse, as I conjecture it.
263. ۲۶۳To his tried virtue, for miraculous help--
264. ۲۶۴How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way!
265. ۲۶۵The other imputations must be lies:
266. ۲۶۶But take one, tho' I loathe to give it thee,
267. ۲۶۷In mere respect for any good man's fame.
268. ۲۶۸(And after all, our patient Lazarus
269. ۲۶۹Is stark mad; should we count on what he says?
270. ۲۷۰Perhaps not: tho' in writing to a leech
271. ۲۷۱'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.)
272. ۲۷۲This man so cured regards the curer, then,
273. ۲۷۳As--God forgive me! who but God Himself,
274. ۲۷۴Creator and sustainer of the world,
275. ۲۷۵That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile.
276. ۲۷۶--'Sayeth that such an one was born, and lived,
277. ۲۷۷Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house,
278. ۲۷۸Then died; with Lazarus by, for aught I know,
279. ۲۷۹And yet was ... what I said nor choose repeat,
280. ۲۸۰And must have so avouched himself, in fact,
281. ۲۸۱In hearing of this very Lazarus
282. ۲۸۲Who saith--but why all this of what he saith?
283. ۲۸۳Why write of trivial matters, things of price
284. ۲۸۴Calling at every moment for remark?
285. ۲۸۵I noticed on the margin of a pool
286. ۲۸۶Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort,
287. ۲۸۷Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!
288. ۲۸۸
289. ۲۸۹Thy pardon for this long and tedious case,
290. ۲۹۰Which, now that I review it, needs must seem
291. ۲۹۱Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth!
292. ۲۹۲Nor I myself discern in what is writ
293. ۲۹۳Good cause for the peculiar interest
294. ۲۹۴And awe indeed this man has touched me with.
295. ۲۹۵Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness
296. ۲۹۶Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus:
297. ۲۹۷I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills
298. ۲۹۸Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there came
299. ۲۹۹A moon made like a face with certain spots
300. ۳۰۰Multiform, manifold, and menacing:
301. ۳۰۱Then a wind rose behind me. So we met
302. ۳۰۲In this old sleepy town at unaware,
303. ۳۰۳The man and I. I send thee what is writ.
304. ۳۰۴Regard it as a chance, a matter risked
305. ۳۰۵To this ambiguous Syrian: he may lose,
306. ۳۰۶Or steal, or give it thee with equal good.
307. ۳۰۷Jerusalem's repose shall make amends
308. ۳۰۸For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine;
309. ۳۰۹Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!
310. ۳۱۰
311. ۳۱۱The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think?
312. ۳۱۲So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too--
313. ۳۱۳So, through the thunder comes a human voice
314. ۳۱۴Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here!
315. ۳۱۵Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!
316. ۳۱۶Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine,
317. ۳۱۷But love I gave thee, with myself to love,
318. ۳۱۸And thou must love me who have died for thee!"
319. ۳۱۹The madman saith He said so; it is strange.