Why need the other women know so much
And talk together, "Such the look and such
The smile he used to love with, then as now!"

18.

Might I die last and show thee! Should I find
Such hardship in the few years left behind,

If free to take and light my lamp, and go
Into thy tomb, and shut the door and sit
Seeing thy face on those four sides of it
The better that they are so blank, I know!

19.

Why, time was what I wanted, to turn o'er
Within my mind each look, get more and more

By heart each word, too much to learn at first,
And join thee all the fitter for the pause
'Neath the low door-way's lintel. That were cause
For lingering, though thou calledst, if I durst!

20.

And yet thou art the nobler of us two.

What dare I dream of, that thou canst not do,

Outstripping my ten small steps with one stride?

I'll say then, here's a trial and a task

Is it to bear?-if easy, I'll not ask —

Though love fail, I can trust on in thy pride.

21.

Pride? when those eyes forestall the life behind The death I have to go through! — when I find,

Now that I want thy help most, all of thee! What did I fear? Thy love shall hold me fast Until the little minute's sleep is past

And I wake saved. — And yet, it will not be!

AN EPISTLE

CONTAINING THE

STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN.

KARSHISH, the picker-up of learning's crumbs,

The not-incurious in God's handiwork

(This man's-flesh He hath admirably made,
Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,

To coop up and keep down on earth a space
That puff of vapour from His mouth, man's soul)
-To Abib, all-sagacious in our art,

Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast,

Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks

Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain,

Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip

Back and rejoin its source before the term,―

And aptest in contrivance, under God,

To baffle it by deftly stopping such:

The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home

Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace)

Three samples of true snake-stone - rarer still,

One of the other sort, the melon-shaped,

(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs) And writeth now the twenty-second time.

My journeyings were brought to Jericho,
Thus I resume. Who studious in our art
Shall count a little labour unrepaid?

I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone
On many a flinty furlong of this land.
Also the country-side is all on fire

With rumours of a marching hitherward —
Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son.
A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear;
Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls:
I cried and threw my staff and he was gone.
Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me,
And once a town declared me for a spy,
But at the end, I reach Jerusalem,

Since this poor covert where I pass the night,
This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence

A man with plague-sores at the third degree
Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here!
'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe,

To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip

And share with thee whatever Jewry yields.

A viscid choler is observable

In tertians, I was nearly bold to say,

And falling-sickness hath a happier cure
Than our school wots of: there's a spider here
Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs,
Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back;

Take five and drop them... but who knows his mind,
The Syrian run-a-gate I trust this to?

His service payeth me a sublimate
Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye.
Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn,
There set in order my experiences,

Gather what most deserves and give thee all
Or I might add, Judea's gum-tragacanth
Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained,
Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry,
In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease
Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy —
Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar-
But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.

Yet stay my Syrian blinketh gratefully, Protesteth his devotion is my price —

Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal? I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush,

What set me off a-writing first of all.

An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang!
For, be it this town's barrenness

or else

The Man had something in the look of himHis case has struck me far more than 'tis worth.

So, pardon if (lest presently I lose

In the great press of novelty at hand

The care and pains this somehow stole from me)
I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind,
Almost in sight-for, wilt thou have the truth?
The very man is gone from me but now,
Whose ailment is the subject of discourse.
Thus then, and let thy better wit help all.