Then worse again. He tried to dress; He trimmed his tragic mane; Announced at length (to our distress) He had not "lived in vain ; Thenceforth his one prevailing mood Became a base beatitude. And O Jean Paul, and Fate, and Soul ! We met him last, grown stout, His throat with wedlock's triple roll,— "All wool,"-enwound about; His very hat had changed its brim ; Our course was clear,-WE BANISHED HIM! THE PRAYER OF THE SWINE TO CIRCE. HUDDLING they came, with shag sides caked of mire, With hoofs fresh sullied from the troughs o'er turned,― With wrinkling snouts, yet eyes in which desire Through those brute masks some piteous tale to teach, Yet lacked the words thereto, denied the power of speech. For these Eurylochus alone escaping— In truth, that small exploring band had been, Whom wise Odysseus, dim precaution shaping, Had sent inland ;-whom then the islet-Queen,— The fair disastrous daughter of the Sun,— Had turned to likeness of the beast unclean, With evil wand transforming one by one But "the men's minds remained," and these for ever A saving hope, or if they might surprise In that cold face soft pity's spark concealed, Which she, still scorning, evermore denies ; Nor was there in her any ruth revealed To whom with such mute speech and dumb words they appealed. What hope is ours-what hope! To find no mercy The ravening Cyclops and the Læstrigon! And O, thrice cursèd be Laertes' son, By whom, at last, we watch the days decline Condemned in styes to weary and to pine And with men's hearts to beat through this foul front of swine! For us not now,—for us, alas! no more The old green glamour of the glancing sea; For us not now the laughter of the oar,— The strong-ribbed keel wherein our comrades be; Not now, at even, any more shall we, By low-browed banks and reedy river places, Watch the beast hurry and the wild fowl flee; Or steering shoreward, in the upland spaces Have sight of curling smoke and fair-skinned foreign faces. Alas for us!-for whom the columned houses We left afore-time, cheerless must abide ; Cheerless the hearth where now no guest carouses,— No minstrel raises song at eventide; And O, more cheerless than aught else beside, The wistful hearts with heavy longing full ; The wife that watched us on the waning tide,— The sire whose eyes with weariness are dull,— The mother whose slow tears fall on the carded wool. If swine we be,—if we indeed be swine, But O Unmerciful! O Pitiless! Leave us not thus with sick men's hearts to bleed! To waste long days in yearning, dumb distress And memory of things gone, and utter hopelessness ! |