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But cockle, spurge,according to their law
Might propagate theirkind with none to awe,
You’d think; a burrhad been a treasure trove.
XI
No! penury, inertnessand grimace,
In some strange sort,were the land’s portion. ‘See
Or shut your eyes,’said Nature peevishly,
‘It nothing skills: Ica
‘Tis the LastJudgement’s fire must cure this place
Calcine its clods andset my prisoners free.’
XII
If there pushed anyragged thistle-stalk
Above its mates, thehead was chopped, the bents
Were jealous else.What made those holes and rents
In the dock’s harshswarth leaves, bruised as to baulk
All hope ofgree
Pashing their lifeout, with a brute’s intents.
XIII
As for the grass, itgrew as scant as hair
In leprosy; thin dryblades pricked the mud
Which underneathlooked kneaded up with blood.
One stiff blindhorse, his every bone a-stare,
Stood stupefied,however he came there:
Thrust out pastservice from the devil’s stud!
XIV
Alive? he might bedead for aught I know,
With that red gauntand colloped neck a-strain.
And shut eyesunderneath the rusty mane;
Seldom went suchgrotesqueness with such woe;
I never saw a brute Ihated so;
He must be wicked todeserve such pain.
XV
I shut my eyes andturned them on my heart,
As a man calls forwine before he fights,
I asked one draughtof earlier, happier sights,
Ere fitly I couldhope to play my part.
Think first, fightafterwards, the soldier’s art:
One taste of the oldtime sets all to rights.
XVI
Not it! I fanciedCuthbert’s reddening face
Beneath its garnitureof curly gold,
Dear fellow, till Ialmost felt him fold
An arm to mine to fixme to the place,
The way he used.Alas, one night’s disgrace!
Out went my heart’snew fire and left it cold.
XVII
Giles then, the soulof honour—there he stands
Frank as ten yearsago when knighted first,
What honest manshould dare (he said) he durst.
Good—but thescene shifts—faugh! what hangman hands
Pin to his breast aparchment? His own bands
Read it. Poortraitor, spit upon and curst!
XVIII
Better this presentthan a past like that:
Back therefore to mydarkening path again!
No sound, no sight asfar as eye could strain.
Will the night send ahowlet or a bat?
I asked: whensomething on the dismal flat
Came to arrest mythoughts and change their train.
XIX
A sudden little rivercrossed my path
As unexpected as aserpent comes.
No sluggish tidecongenial to the glooms;
This, as it frothedby, might have been a bath
For the fiend’sglowing hoof—to see the wrath
Of its black eddybespate with flakes and spumes.
XX
So petty yet sospiteful! All along,
Low scrubby alderskneeled down over it;
Drenched willowsflung them headlong in a fit
Of mute despair, asuicidal throng:
The river which haddone them all the wrong,
Whate’er that was,rolled by, deterred no whit.
XXI
Which, while I forded—goodsaints, how I feared
To set my foot upon adead man’s cheek,
Each step, or feelthe spear I thrust to seek
For hollows, tangledin his hair or beard!
—It may havebeen a water-rat I speared,
But, ugh! it soundedlike a baby’s shriek.
XXII
Glad was I when Ireached the other bank.
Now for a bettercountry. Vain presage!
Who were thestrugglers, what war did they wage,
Whose savage tramplethus could pad the dank
Soil to a plash?Toads in a poisoned tank
Or wild cats in ared-hot iron cage—
XXIII
The fight must sohave seemed in that fell cirque,
What pe
No footprint leadingto that horrid mews,
None out of it. Madbrewage set to work
Their brains, nodoubt, like galley-slaves the Turk
Pits for his pastime,Christians against Jews.
XXIV
And more thanthat—a furlong on—why, there!
What bad use was thatengine for, that wheel,
Or brake, notwheel—that harrow fit to reel
Men’s bodies out likesilk? With all the air
Of Tophet’s tool, onearth left unaware
Or brought to sharpenits rusty teeth of steel.
XXV
Then came a bit ofstubbed ground, once a wood,
Next a marsh it wouldseem, and now mere earth
Desperate and donewith; (so a fool finds mirth,
Makes a thing andthen mars it, till his mood
Changes and off hegoes!) within a rood—
Bog, clay and rubble,sand, and stark black dearth.
XXVI
Now blotchesrankling, coloured gay and grim,
Now patches wheresome lea
Broke into moss, orsubstances like boils;
Then came somepalsied oak, a cleft in him
Like a distortedmouth that splits its rim
Gaping at death, anddies while it recoils.
XXVII
And just as far asever from the end!
Naught in thedistance but the evening, naught
To point my footstepfurther! At the thought,
A great black bird,Apollyon’s bosom friend,
Sailed past, not besthis wide wing dragon-pe
That brushed mycap—perchance the guide I sought.
XXVIII
For, looking up,aware I somehow grew,
‘Spite of the dusk,the plain had given place
All round tomountains—with such name to grace
Mere ugly heights andheaps now stolen in view.
How thus they hadsurprised me—solve it, you!
How to get from themwas no clearer case.
XXIX
Yet half I seemed torecognise some trick
Of mischief happenedto me, God knows when—
In a bad dreamperhaps. Here ended, then
Progress this way.When, in the very nick
Of giving up, onetime more, came a click
As when a trapshuts—you’re inside the den.
XXX
Burningly it came onme all at once,
This was the place!those two hills on the right,
Crouched like twobulls locked horn in horn in fight;
While to the left atall scalped mountain… Dunce,
Dotard, a-dozing atthe very nonce,